Via Email
March 28, 2013
Claremont McKenna College
Pamela Gann, President
Hiram Chodosh, President Elect
Gregory Hess, Dean of Faculty
Sven Arndt, Faculty Chair
Pitzer College
Laura Trombley, President
Muriel Poston, Dean of Faculty
Mita Banerjee, Faculty Chair
Harvey Mudd College
Maria Klawe, President
Kerry Karukstis, Faculty Chair
Pomona College
David Oxtoby, President
Amy Marcus-Newhall, Dean of Faculty
Ann Dwyer, Faculty Chair
Scripps College
Lori Bettison-Varga, President
Rita Roberts, Faculty Chair
Keck Graduate Institute
Sheldon Schuster, President
Animesh Ray, Faculty Chair
Claremont Graduate University
Deborah Freund, President
Lorne Olfman, Faculty Chair
RE: Claremont Colleges’ responsibility to protect student speech and remedy the harms of
racial bias.
Dear Presidents, Deans of Faculty, and Faculty Chairpersons,
The undersigned civil rights organizations write on behalf of the student organization
Students for Justice in Palestine, and concerned faculty, to express our alarm about developments
at the Claremont Colleges (“the Colleges”).
Our concern arises from recent reports that a professor from Claremont McKenna
College (CMC) lashed out at a student during an event to raise awareness about Palestinian
human rights. As detailed below, the response from CMC suggests that the administration is not
prepared to address the harm caused by the professor’s actions. These events threaten students’
civil rights, and suggest that Claremont McKenna College is not meeting its obligation to make
the campus welcoming for a range of political viewpoints on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
We also write to provide important background for this controversy, which takes place in
the context of escalating efforts to suppress Palestinian rights advocacy on campuses throughout
the U.S. These efforts create a discriminatory and intimidating atmosphere for Arab, Muslim,
and pro-Palestinian members of the campus community. In light of this climate, the Colleges
have a heightened obligation to protect speech on this issue, and to protect students and faculty
who are targeted for their views.
2
I. Recent events at Claremont McKenna College
As you are likely aware, on March 4th, 2013, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) at the
Claremont Colleges staged a mock Israeli military checkpoint at the Collins Dining Hall at
CMC. During this protest, there was a heated verbal exchange between a student and a professor
from CMC, during which the CMC professor cursed at the student using a racial slur.
The purpose of the student demonstration was to raise awareness about the human rights
crisis in the occupied Palestinian territory. The demonstration was a performance reenacting a
mild version of Israeli military checkpoints. It involved performers asking passersby for their
identification. The students who organized the protest complied with all relevant campus
policies and procedures, as Pitzer College’s own investigation has confirmed. Initially the
students had partially roped off one access point to the dining hall, but when asked by CMC
officials to restructure the protest to move away from the entrance to the dining hall, the students
complied.
During the checkpoint protest, a professor from CMC came to the scene, and requested
campus officials to intervene to have the student protesters move away from the entrance to the
dining hall. A Palestinian student involved in the protest then walked up to the professor and
asked his reason for being there. The student requested that the professor identify himself
because he was uncertain whether the professor had authority to interfere with their event. In an
exchange verified and quoted in the campus security officer’s report, the professor then
responded by cursing at the student, and repeatedly calling him a “cockroach,” presumably
referring to his ethnic background as a Palestinian.
The term “cockroach” has a history of usage as a form of dehumanization in several
contexts of genocide, including Rwanda, and by Israeli politicians as a demeaning reference to
Palestinians. The student who was victim to the professor’s verbal abuse has explained that while
living in the occupied territory he often heard the term applied to him and other ethnic
Palestinians as a racial slur.
The student has filed a complaint against the professor, pursuant to college procedures
laid out in the CMC Faculty Handbook. The complaint requests remedies that focus on
redressing the harms to the educational environment caused by the professional misconduct and
display of racial bias. The affected students were not given assurance by CMC officials that the
complaint was being taken seriously. As of this date, the affected students are unaware of what
actions, if any, CMC officials are taking to address the harm that occurred.
Instead, the students were told they were being “investigated.” First in a campus-wide
email, and later in private meetings with officials from Pitzer and CMC, the students involved
with the SJP protest were told that the campuses were investigating potential s of the student
code of conduct that they may have committed in organizing the demonstration. Pitzer College
officials completed its investigation promptly and informed the campus community that the
students did not violate any campus rules.
But CMC officials have continued the investigation of the student protest. Officials have
maintained that there were “complaints” about the student protest, although no specific
3
complaints have been made known to the students. CMC officials have told the students they
may have violatd the demonstrations policy because they restricted access to the dining hall. But
campus administrators knew that the protestors obtained all of the proper authorizations for the
event, that they complied when they were asked to move, and that the campus security report
noted that the students did not block the entrance to the dining hall.
Meanwhile, at least two additional incidents of harassment by unknown perpetrators have
taken place against the student who was the target of the professor’s verbal abuse. On March 12,
the student’s car tire was vandalized with a sharp metal object, flattening it. On the same day, a
threatening note was found scrawled on a card marking the student’s reservation for a carrel desk
in the library. Pitzer officials have been notified about both incidents.
II. The Claremont Colleges have a duty to protect against harassment of all students,
including Muslim, Arab, and Pro-Palestinian students.
College faculty, staff and administrators have a responsibility to foster a safe
environment, promote learning and provide an equal opportunity for all students to engage in
various aspects of student life without fear of harassment or discrimination. In accordance with
their own anti-harassment policies, the Colleges are obligated to remedy harms of racism when
they occur.
If CMC does not take swift and appropriate action to remedy the harms caused by a
professor who used a racial slur against a Palestinian student, the college enables an atmosphere
whereby certain segments of the student population are subject to marginalization and exclusion.
III. The Claremont Colleges are obligated to protect free speech
The First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution applies to private secular schools in
California.1 The Claremont Colleges, including Claremont McKenna College (CMC), are further
obligated to uphold free speech rights because they have promised to do so in their public
presentations and commitments to students who choose to enroll.2
Speech that criticizes Israeli state policies and actions, and the U.S. government’s support
of them, is protected First Amendment speech. The Supreme Court has emphasized that the
ability to criticize government policy is “the central meaning of the First Amendment.”3 When a
point of view that criticizes government policy is heard on campus, the college is serving its
highest purpose as a “marketplace of ideas.”4
1
See CA statute known as the “Leonard Law,” California Education Code § 94367 (a).
2 See, for example, The Claremont McKenna College Guide to Student Life, at pages 40-41, available at
http://www.cmc.edu/dos/cmcguide/CMC_Guide-Web-2012.pdf. (“Guaranteeing the rights of free speech
and peaceable assembly is a basic requirement for any academic community.”)
3 New York Times v. Sullivan, 376, U.S. 254, 273 (1964).
4 Healy v. James, 408 U.S. 169, 180-81 (1972).
4
