Initial Thoughts on Pomona Email

Please note, we are waiting for CMC to respond to the email. We should reserve judgment on Feldblum's allegations until then. As far as public communications are concerned, CMC President Pamela Gann has handled this situation very appropriately -- in fact she has handled this better than I could have expected.

As such, we should not deny CMC a response in this matter. I find it very unprofessional that Pomona Dean of Students Miriam Feldblum would have the gall to start an email war with CMC's administration. She obviously knew that her email to the Pomona students would have been leaked to us and found its way into administration hands (I'm assuming she did not blind carbon copy our administration).

We cannot ignore that Pomona has a lot to account for. It is obvious given Dean Feldblum's comments to David and Kyle personally, as well as her email today, that Dean Holmes' letter banning Kyle and David was factually inaccurate. It accused them of breaking college policies. Dean Feldblum admits that they had never done so, and the ban was supposedly because of their "behavior" and violation of "community trust."

It seems that Pomona was acting hastily, irrationally, and inconsistently. That said, if she truly did believe that due process had been conducted by CMC, she is on slightly stronger grounds to defend herself. As such, we should wait and see how this plays out, and not rush to conclusions. This late-night letter to the Pomona students merits the wait for a response before forming judgment.

None of this changes the fact, however, that Pomona still owes David and Kyle an apology for what, in the end, was its own actions. While it matters a great deal how and why this decision was made, none of it matters in terms of an apology now that Pomona has slandered the two students. Pomona should immediately issue its apology.

Other notes from the letter:

"I didn't consent to be videotaped" definitely did NOT mean in this context to turn it off. See the video (a couple posts below) to decide for yourself. They were arguing about whether the tape had to be deleted and whether they had broken any laws. David offered multiple times to leave.

It has been well established that the video recording was NOT secretive, and not in any mean spirit. Again, watch it for yourself.


On the forum:

As David rightly says in the comment section, VOX and the WU refuse to debate on the abortion issue. Check out this post that I wrote not long ago about how abortion activists are instructed to avoid debating the issue. Here are the relevant sections:

Shields also illustrates the frustration pro-life students face who want to engage in debate on the issue, because liberal activists on campus are actively discouraged from debating. Writes Shields,

Such frustration is fueled by NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood, whose leaders discourage their campus affiliates from debating or even talking to pro-life students. NARAL’s ‘Campus Kit for Pro-Choice Organizers,’ for example, gives this categorical instruction: ‘Don’t waste time talking to anti-choice people.’

Neuhaus add that “the campus organizer for Planned Parenthood told Shields that she ‘discourages direct debate.’”

Pomona Dean Refuses to Apologize -- Blames CMC

Date: Tue, 10 Mar 2009 19:11:42 -0700
From: Miriam.Feldblum@pomona.edu
Subject: [ALL_STUDENTS] Resolution of February 19th Event
To: ALL_STUDENTS@LISTSERV.POMONA.EDU

Dear Students,

I am writing to provide you with information concerning the final resolution of the February 19^th incident that took place at the Women’s Union. I also want to take this opportunity to address some of the questions I have received about how we arrived at our decisions, what lessons we can learn from this, and discuss some of the excellent suggestions from students in response to the call for a forum.

As I noted in my last email, as soon as the event was reported to us, my office began gathering information from our students who were present at the event, and we immediately turned to the CMC Dean of Students office so that they could gather information from their students. We gave CMC the names of the CMC students who were identified, and forwarded the account of the event we received; as explained to the CMC administrators, a primary concern was that their students videotaped at least a portion of the event without the consent of our students and continued even when they were asked to desist. At that same time, CMC and Pomona began a discussion of response options.

When an incident takes place at Pomona involving non-Pomona Claremont College students, our usual procedure is for the home campus of the students in question to talk with those students to gather information and offer their own perspective on the incident. Sometimes, this is the start of a process which will lead to a formal judicial process on the student’s home campus. We chose not to seek that route in this situation; while the students’ reported behavior broke the trust that we expect of one another as members of a community (especially in a place such as the WU and at an event where students were coming to share personal perspectives and experiences concerning abortion) we did not believe that the behavior neatly fell under the student code or other policies. Instead, the reported actions violated community trust, and as reported, potentially created safety concerns for our students, consequences that prompted us to consider a ban, especially as it related to the CMC student videotaping the event.

As Dean of Students, my top priority is the safety and wellbeing of our students. The CMC students’ actions included the act of videotaping which could very well have captured the images of all the participants in the room, exacerbated by concerns that the names and contact information of the participants were copied from the sign-in sheet. Further, according to the information we had at the time, the student did not stop videotaping when the speaker and other students repeatedly asked him to do so. The uncertainties about the manner and intent of the videotaping, and concerns that names and contact information had been captured, all resulted in a highly disturbing and disruptive situation for the student participants.

From February 20 through March 5th, my office was in continual contact with CMC. The information they gave us, at the time and following their own inquiry, was consistent with the information that was reported to our office. CMC supported the ban on the cameraman, and recommended that we ban a second student. We took their recommendation into consideration, and on March 3rd delivered letters to CMC for the two students notifying them that they were restricted from Pomona campus for all non-academic related activities.

Over this past weekend, I worked with the CMC staff, who reinitiated their efforts to gather information. The CMC Dean of Students and I met with the two students who had received the letters and viewed the videotape. Both CMC and Pomona now know that the speaker and other participants repeatedly told the CMC students that they had not given their consent to be videotaped, and that the CMC students did not stop videotaping even after hearing those statements. But, when the speaker finally explicitly asked the students to stop taping, the students complied.

There appears to have been a misunderstanding in this regard, as statements such as “I have not given you consent to videotape me,” often imply a request to desist such videotaping. That is how those statements were meant by the speaker and the students. We also recognize that others may not hear those statements as a request to stop videotaping. The CMC students did state that part of their purpose of videotaping the event was to show the tape to other audiences; however, the videotape itself shows only the speaker from Planned Parenthood, and not the other participants. Both CMC students have stated to me that they did not take down names or contact information of the other participants, nor did they intend to intimidate the students through their actions. Further, the videotape shows that while a series of questions asked by the CMC students may have interrupted the flow of conversation, they were not disruptive nor did they chill the free expression of ideas.

Based upon this additional information, we decided that the best course would be to rescind the letters. While the secretive manner in which the videotaping was performed was inappropriate and disrespectful, it did not rise to the level of justification for a ban given the additional context and clarification we later received. I believe that we should always be willing to listen and consider new information in any situation, and be prepared to change a decision because it is the right thing to do.

This situation has illuminated for us the need to reexamine our recording policy to see if it should be clarified or strengthened. We also will work with the other Colleges to clarify the processes we each employ when we issue bans, and the variety of reasons for which bans are issued. At this point, there is no written consortium policy regarding bans, and a written policy would be helpful. Finally, a lesson for us is that our administrative procedure should be revised so that even more specific information is obtained from the other campus in a situation of this kind, possibly including the presence of a Pomona dean when the other College’s dean questions the students involved in an incident.

Finally, in my last message, I suggested that we host a forum on abortion. A number of students, including students from the WU, VOX, and PSU, wisely suggested that we instead hold a forum on the questions and tensions that arise from our dual commitments – our commitment to providing safe, supportive spaces on campus for students to engage in respectful, personal, and challenging dialogue without fear of reprisal and our commitment to robust, open free speech and other student rights. What rights do student organizers have when they hold events that are open to everyone? What are our expectations as a community regarding respectful dialogue and respect for one another? What are our expectations and responsibilities in upholding free speech and supporting a wide diversity of views? I think these are all compelling and important questions for us as a community to consider. So, I would now like to invite you if you are interested in working on this forum to contact Dean Mooko. We will still consider hosting a forum on abortion during next semester.

In closing, I want to reiterate my appreciation to all the students who provided their comments and perspectives on this situation.

Best wishes,

Dean Feldblum

Miriam Feldblum
Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students
Professor of Politics
101 Alexander Hall
Pomona College
550 N. College Ave.
Claremont, CA 91711
Email: miriam.feldblum@pomona.edu
Tel: 909-621-8017
Fax: 909-607-7288

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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