Thank you, PSU and QRC! Giving Credit Where It is Due

Thank you to Pomona Student Union for an excellent debate between Kenneth Starr and Erwin Chemerinsky regarding the War Powers Resolution. It was quite the performance!

Unlike past events, the Queer Resource Center and its allies didn't disrupt the event. Maybe they have learned that that tactic doesn't work.

Though I disagree with gay students and others who argue that marriage is a fundamental right, I understand that this issue is a key one for them and I thank them for not letting their passions guide them.

Their event outside was nice and thoughtful and I enjoyed the candies that they placed on our chairs. All in all, I had a very pleasant evening (notwithstanding the Kyle and David affair.)

Join the "Don't Ban David and Kyle from Pomona" Facebook Group!

Kevin Vance CMC '08 and Adam D'Luzansky CMC '08 have set up a Facebook group in protest. Register your complaint with the Pomona administration for banning Kyle and David here!

Of course I hope that you take other venues as well, but any support would be greatly appreciated. On the Facebook group, they list how you can get involved.

CMC Dean Fid Castro's Response to David Daleiden

The following is from David Daleiden, who was recently banned from Pomona College for videotaping a public lecture. Here is what Claremont McKenna Dean Fid Castro is alleged by David to have said about helping Kyle and David get unbanned from Pomona College. From David 

"You have no right to be on Pomona's campus. You have no more right to walk across Pomona's campus than you do to walk through someone's living room. You have  no contractual agreement with Pomona college; you are not a student at Pomona; you have no more rights at Pomona than an individual walking his dog down the street."

He also said, "I don't know what Pomona's policies are [regarding free speech].

Basically, I was told that Dean Castro has no reason to defend me or Kyle Kinneberg against the unjust, draconian actions that Pomona College is levying against us."

History of Abortion Awareness Week Recordings

According to C. Apollo Morgan, former editor of The Claremont Independent, Dorothy Lam (now Dorothy Morgan) recorded "Abortion Awareness Week" in 2003 and The Claremont Independent published a very detailed description in The Claremont Independent. She was a Pomona student at the time. It was in the first or second issue of the Spring 2003 semester because in the next issue of The Claremont Independent the Claremont Port Side's founders published a piece criticizing us. Dorothy, according to her husband, Apollo, had a "very able response."

Dorothy Morgan wasn't banned. Why not?

Video to Come by Midnight Tonight

David gave me permission and a copy of the video which I will break up and then put up in their entirety by midnight tonight. 

You will see several things in the video. 

On the video, David and Kyle ask if they want them to leave three times, only to have Serena Josel continue to lecture them about the California law (which she was wrong on, by the way.)

They also stopped recording when Josel asked them to stop recording, even though the law was correctly on their side. This means that Dean Feldblum and Dean Holmes's following statement isn't true:

"When we hear that someone has failed to respect one of the central values of the Women’s Union by recording a conversation in this way, and/or continuing to record when repeatedly told to stop, we feel compelled to respond.”

That never actually happened. Will Dean Marcelle Holmes and Dean Miriam Feldblum apologize? Or will they continue to threaten these students? 

Pomona College and "Double Standards"

Let's put this in perspective. Shall we? 

A brief history is in order. 

• When students shouted down a speaker at Pomona College, Marvin Stewart of the Minute Man Project, no one was punished. In fact, President Oxtoby sent out an email saying that we should talk about "free speech" on campus.

• When students disrupted lunches and dinners in all the different campuses by yelling across the dining halls against the passage of Proposition 8, no one was punished.

• When students, among whom some were Pomona students, stopped a CMC speaker from leaving the Athenaeum in an effort to execute a "citizen's arrest" on Karl Rove, no one was punished. 

• When some Muslim students disrupted the question and answer period during Ayaan Hirsi Ali's talk, no one was punished.

• When some Pitzer students defaced property at CGU, they were given several hours of "community service." 

• In 1993, when students protesting a lack of racial diversity on campus occupied Alexander Hall, the then-dean of students at Pomona College reportedly gave them hot chocolate and cookies while they "occupied" the building. 

But when pro-life students ask a couple of hard-hitting questions of Selena Josel, a Planned Parenthood PR rep, they get banned from Pomona College. 

Even though Page 129, Pomona College's handbook calls for a "written statement" to be sent to the respondent, no statement was delivered letting the boys know that there were charges outstanding against them. They were just flat out banned. 

Page 127 says something far more damning. I quote, 

"In determining whether an act constitutes discrimination or harassment, the context must be carefully reviewed and full consideration must be given for the protection of individual rights, freedom of speech, and academic freedom." 

Did Dean Marcelle Holmes, who never contacted David or Kyle before she banned them, "carefully" review the "context"? Did she give "full consideration" for the "protection" of their "individual rights, freedom of speech, and academic freedom"? And might there be some conflict of interest in "investigating" a "grievance" from the Women's Union, when Dean Marcelle Holmes is the Dean of Women? 

I've emailed Dean Holmes asking for a time to meet with her for an article we plan on running in The Claremont Independent. Let's see if she really wants to have a dialogue about free speech issues on campus. 

Pomona's Abuse of Power

I haven’t blogged recently, but this is simply outrageous. The recent act by Pomona’s “Dean of Women” is an unbelievable abuse of power. The Dean of Women’s actions are unethical on three grounds:

(1) There was absolutely no due process. No one even bothered to ask Kyle or David their side of the story. Simply, the Planned Parenthood representative and the Vox women lied about the details of the event. There is, in fact, video evidence (obviously), that (a) the video device was not concealed, and (b) David and Kyle in fact offered to leave if asked.

The video explicitly shows that David said they would leave if so requested. This directly contradicts Dean Holmes’ statement in the first paragraph of her letter: “When we hear that someone has failed to respect one of the central values of the Women’s Union by recording a conversation in this way, and/or continuing to record when repeatedly told to stop, we feel compelled to respond.”

Holmes clearly does not actually know the facts of the case: she took the accusers at their word, and took punitive action without due process and without asking the students in question their version of the events. (Again, she could have, at least, asked to see the incontrovertible video evidence).

(2) No Pomona college policies were actually violated. There is no video policy (just search it) that actually says that students attending (and not organizing the event) may not record public lectures. In fact, Dean Feldblum’s email to the Pomona student body recognizes this point! At no point in his email did he say any policies were violated; only that “Secretly recording conversations is a violation of the Women’s Union space and is contrary to the values of the Pomona College community." Not only did Dean Feldblum also have the facts wrong—the recording was not secret—but he also acknowledged that in fact no violation of policy occurred.

Dean Holmes’ letter claims that they “had no authority to be involved in the recording of this conversation without the prior knowledge and explicit authorization of Pomona College.” She later says that such “business is against Pomona College policy.” I challenge Holmes to produce that policy. As far as my research can tell, it does not exist. It is also worth noting that no laws were violated.

In fact, it appears that the only College policies violated were violated by the Pomona College administration. The Pomona policies declare that in cases of alleged harassment —since that is the only actual policy that one could claim was broken by the students—the students accused shall have opportunities to respond. The students shall also have the right of appeal, which was also denied in this case.

(3) Finally, on what authority can Dean Holmes prohibit students from conducting actions that are not against local, state, or federal law, or college policy? More specifically, on what authority can Dean Holmes declare that Kyle and David “are prohibited from using, releasing, or in any way disseminating any images that you obtained in your filming,” and that all original video copies must be surrendered, under threat of “further action from the College” and “additional liability”? There is no local, state, or federal law that requires them to do so, and neither is there a college policy that requires it. It is outrageous that Pomona College sends insidious and empty threats to students.

The (probably unilateral) action of the Dean of Women should be immediately overturned, and Kyle and David should be allowed to proceed to do just what they came here to do—take their education seriously. That includes having the ability to access Pomona College resources at times of their choosing.