Pomona's Other Ban

At college, I'm often reminded of a something that my old boss once said: "Those that begin burning books often end up burning people."

It turns out that the original phrase was from Heinrich Heine, a German romantic writer of the 19th century. Here's what Heine said, "Dort, wo man Bücher verbrennt, verbrennt man auch am Ende Menschen. Where they burn books, at the end they also burn people."

Pomona College has made me remember this phrase a lot recently. At first they banned songs and now they have banned students. We've gotten one ban rescinded. Carl Olson PO '66 wants to overturn the other. Here's his letter to the Pomona College Magazine.

March 9, 2009

Editor

Pomona College Magazine

Pomona College

Claremont, California 91711

Dear Editor:

The alma mater ban controversy has turned into a dismaying case of faulty corporate governance. As a long-time advocate for improved corporate accountability in the for-profit and nonprofit arena, this is highly embarrassing.

I’m also personally chagrined that the ban advocates have used me as a reference for their one-sided arguments. I did mention a couple years ago in a letter in the Pomona College Magazine that the alma mater “Hail! Pomona, Hail” was written for a blackface minstrel show, according to the notes of a 1958 record jacket. We now know, due to the diligent historical research by alumna Rosemary Choate, that this was an erroneous recollection nearly a half century later by the song’s composer Richard Loucks. Mr. Loucks may well have been thinking of another of his songs “The Blue and White” which did appear in a 1910 fundraiser show for the baseball team—some part of the show was performed in the blackface tradition.

So, without before even establishing the facts last spring, President David Oxtoby, took the nuclear option of banning the song from College events pending further study by a Song Committee headed by Professor Kim Bruce.

The Song Committee apparently had no training in open corporate governance. They held no open meetings of the committee. They had a session for student input, which drew about 30 out of 1500, but banned the rest of us, including myself and others who wanted to present the facts. They sent a researcher to the Honnold Library Special Collections who failed to find any evidence of it being composed for any show in blackface, even though Honnold had excellent evidence to show it was not even composed by the 1910 date of the fundraiser show. Nevertheless, despite the facts of the case, the Committee voted to recommend not only to ban the alma mater totally, but to hunt up another. Of course, the meeting was closed from attendance by the entire Pomona family.

President Oxtoby made a report to the Board of Trustees in December, to offer his own A-Bomb solution or the Committee’s H-Bomb version. Nothing else. He put nothing in writing, including the approximately 800 alumni letters against the ban. So the Trustees had nothing to study ahead of time or know exactly what he and the Committee was doing. The Trustees did not pass any resolution for the minutes of the board, and so this is still an open issue.

We all need to work for a more positive outcome. Something that reflects positively on academic inquiry, rather than mindlessly submitting to some truly regrettable politically-correct dogma.

Sincerely,

Carl Olson ‘66