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Statements from the candidates for First-Year Class President. First-Year Class President posters hang along the balcony outside of Appleby Hall As the fall semester ramps us, familiar banners hang over the balcony outside Appleby Hall. First-Year Class President campaigns are in full force, and this year's cohort promises to bring you everything from North Quad air conditioning to new party music to chicken-fueled social events. The First-Year Class President (FYCP) sits on ASCMC’s Executive Board as a representative and liaison of the Class of 2027. The FYCP manages a budget of $3000, and is responsible for planning a plethora of events, activities, and initiatives geared towards the Class of 2027 or the broader CMC community. Candidates rush to collect 50 signatures by Thursday at 11:59pm to officially declare their candidacy and earn a spot on the ballot. Speeches will occur during snack (10:30pm) on Thursday, September 19th at Collins Dining Hall! Voting will open starting at Midnight and will be open until 8pm on Friday the 20th! FYCP Candidates (alphabetical order by last name) Clark Cheung Gabe Gardner Selah Han Ismail Iftikhar Ibukun Owolabi Caleb Rasor Gabe Gardner Hi everyone, my name is Gabe Gardner, and I'm running to be your first year class president! These past four weeks have been an amazing way for us to get to get to know one another, but I believe that we can make these bonds even stronger. If I were to be your class president, I intend to grow our already amazing community into an even better, more connected group. I want to plan events that you, the students, want. Whether it’s Raising Canes or Chick-Fil-A at socials or study groups, painting class coolers or di tables, communicating your wants and concerns with ASCMC directly, I will do my absolute best to make sure I am serving you all. On top of this, I would use my position and the resources it comes with for everyone’s best interests. We’ve only been here for a short time, and might not know what needs adjusting, but I can promise you that once we do, I will work my hardest to fix it. I want to be here for everyone and their problems, whether it's social, academic, or personal. College has, and will continue to be, a transition for all of us. Transitions are shaky, scary, and uncertain at times, and I want to be here for you all, so we can build a strong, tight-knit community. Just like RA’s, I want to have open-door hours and times for people to meet and talk with me, and also each other. Socials are going to be one of my biggest focuses if elected, but on top of that, I also want to make sure that I can create environments for people to study and hang out. I want to program for all of you, not just some of you. Selah Han INVEST IN SELAH shes YOUR greatest asset and she won’t SEL YOU OUT! super excited abt possibly representing our class and having a fun year! come up and say hi, I’d love to get to know everyone more! Ismail Iftikhar As freshmen class president, there are two main causes I, Ismail Iftikhar, will dedicate myself to. First, our upperclassmen have been striving, for some time, to include racial-studies as a G.E. This initiative succeeded in attaining approval from the faculty, but has, till now, been submissed by the board. This, to me, is utterly surprising. Racial-studies is a broad category, and almost 85% students fulfill the requirement without it even existing. Thus, it isn’t a matter of academic consideration, rather, a political statement. A statement that we as a community should be proud to make, as only by learning about each other can we truly learn to co-exist. Thus, as the only international student in the race, I pledge to dedicate myself to making sure that CMC stands for such statements. Second, as a leading institution of the world that will give birth to the leaders of tomorrow, we must remain inclusively engaged with relevant global issues. In particular, it is disappointing that CMC has played no role in educating its students on the Israel-Palestine conflict. This isn’t a matter of opinion or sides. It is a matter of principle. We cannot ignore the realities of such terrifying global issues. Thus, considering the uniqueness of the ath, I seek to elevate student involvement in deciding speakers for ath talks, so that we may host speakers that inform us about both sides of the Israel-Palestine conflict. While I will work towards other causes, like North-quad air conditioning, increasing budgets for dorms, and evacuating the school whenever there is a fire again (just for free vacations), what I ultimately stand for is simple: to make CMC a place that we and the world can be proud of. A diverse, responsible, honest, and proactive institution. Ibukun Owolabi One of the best success stories in sports history is that of Serena and Venus Williams. Their whole life, they pushed each other as far as physically possible in the sport that they loved. Eventually, their hard work and dedication would lead to their cementation in the Sports’ Hall of Fame! Without one another, they would not have been able to become world champions. Without one another, they would not have been challenged and pushed hard enough to become better. When asked to write this statement, I was challenged. Not because the question was hard, but because there were so many ways to go about answering the question. As I pondered an answer, I thought about how Serena and Venus would tackle such a situation. And I realized that (if they were in such a position of running for Class President of CMC) no matter what their answer to this question would be, they would not go through it alone. That is where I took inspiration from as my answer. Regardless of who ends up as our class president, I encourage and implore you to put your voice and ideas out there. Solutions that seem minuscule to you can be life-changing for other people. Whether you go to senate meetings or reach out to your class representative, please use your voice to make CMC better. If I have the honor to serve you as president, I would love to hear all of the amazing ideas that all 338 of you have and I would love the opportunity to learn more about the beautiful person behind that idea. Caleb Rasor Hey everyone! My name is Caleb Rasor, and I’m running this year for First Year Class President. When your high school ran class president elections, who tended to be the winner? I can guess that they were charismatic, popular, and skilled at speaking. I can also guess that they had elaborate, lofty plans to “change things” – and that those plans never panned out. You may have found yourself disappointed at the end of the year, when all their promises came up empty, that no one had simply vowed to listen. Unlike your class presidents of old, I not only vow to listen – I vow to make it my top priority. I vow to make myself available to all first years so you can voice your concerns and desires. My first line of business will be to make a submission form where, at any time, you can share your thoughts anonymously or with your name attached. With every major decision by ASCMC involving the first-year class, I will specifically ask for your input, and vote according to the sentiments you express. Throughout this year, we will all face opportunities and challenges. There will be clubs to be funded, parties to be planned, physical spaces to be improved, and issues to be resolved. No matter what comes our way, you can rest easy knowing that you set my agenda. I don’t act like I know all the answers – and you shouldn’t settle for a class president who does. Oh, and when I’m elected, I think we can agree on agenda item number 1: improving the CMC party music! Candidates who did not provide a statement will still give speeches! Speeches will occur during Snack (10:30pm) on Thursday, September 19th at Collins Dining Hall! Voting is open starting at midnight and is open until 8pm on Friday the 20th!

ASPC states that the zine found its way onto their 5C club fair table by mistake.  Students accuse ASPC of spreading “anti-Jewish propaganda” on the Walker Beach art wall Last Wednesday, the Associated Students of Pomona College (ASPC) club table distributed copies of a zine titled “Mask Up”  alongside masks and other materials regarding COVID. The zine’s initial pages provide information on the COVID virus and protective measures, such as testing and effective personal protective equipment.  Front cover of the “Mask Up” zine After the initial pages, the booklet forwards the arguement that the “amerikkkan-israeli empire” weaponizes the COVID virus as a tool of eugenics-based genocide in the first section, “Pandemics are a Tool of the Colonizer.” ASPC table with “Mask Up” zines (credit: Claremont Haverim) Claremont Haverim claimed that the zine’s content was expressly antisemitic and pro-Hamas. The organization pointed to statements such as, “BY BOMB OR BY PATHOGEN, THESE ATTACKS ON PALESTINIAN LIFE ARE MAN-MADE, INTENTIONAL POLICY CHOICES, ONES INTENDED TO CONSOLIDATE WEALTH FOR THE MIS-RULERS OF THE WORLD,” as examples of historic antisemitic beliefs that Jewish populations control disease and wealth.  Haverim also pointed to statements in the zine that “the ongoing Operation Al-Aqsa Flood is a direct attempt to release the thousands of Palestinians held in Israeli jails” and that Hamas is a “national liberal group” as evidence of explicit support for a terrorist movement since Operation Al-Aqsa is Hamas’s codename for the October 7th attacks . The zine also cited a statement by the Palestinian Youth Movement and Writers Against the War on Gaza categorizing The New York Times  as Israeli “state-run media” that spread “unevidenced claims of ‘mass rape’ by Palestinian resistance on October 7th.”  Illustration from “Mask Up” featuring an armed individual masking a child On Tuesday September 10 Avis Hinkson, the vice president of student affairs and dean of students, and Y. Melanie Wu, vice president of academic affairs and dean of the college, announced that the college officially launched an investigation into the incident. ASPC issued a community update on the matter in an email later the same day: “During the course of the club fair, 3-5 copies of a zine that we did not print, the “Mask Up” zine, were mixed up with our own materials. We did not realize and were not notified of this until after the club fair, and we did not produce the zine.” Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) and Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) responded to Pomona’s investigation in an Instagram post  on Thursday, September 12. SJP and PDfA called the investigation into the zine’s content and ASPC’s distribution of the material a conflation of antisemitism with anti-zionism. On Monday, September 10, students took to the Walker Beach art wall to levy accusations against SJP and ASPC of distributing “anti-Jewish Propaganda.” By Wednesday, another group of students painted a new message: “Anti-Zionism is not anti-Jewish propaganda. Free Palestine. Intifada. We are not afraid. Disclose. Divest.” Students respond to accusations of antisemitism on the Walker Beach art wall No organization or individuals have publicly affiliated themselves with the zine or claimed responsibility for its distribution. In a comment to The Student Life , Kenneth Wolf, chair of the faculty of Pomona, expressed concerns with a lack of intellectual accountability at the Claremont Colleges: “If you don’t stand up for what you believe in and let people know that you believe in it, everything is muddled from the very beginning, as far as I’m concerned. If something is done anonymously it’s always problematic.” The matter will continue to unfold over the next few weeks as the investigation develops alongside U.S. Department of Education investigations into alleged discrimination against Palestinian  and Jewish  Pomona students.

Riley teaches us that we must first recognize our flaws to experience the true joy of forgiveness. On Wednesday, Inside Out 2  became Pixar Studio’s highest grossing film , bringing in over $1 billion in revenue. Inside Out 2  is also the top grossing movie of the year and the fourth highest grossing animated film of all time. Since 2020, Pixar has struggled to produce box office hits (Credit: TheWrap) Since Pixar’s 2020 flop Onward , the studio has struggled  to please audiences, with no film earning over $200 million until Inside Out 2 . While some have declared Inside Out 2  to be a continuation  of Pixar’s slump, the film’s box office success, amazing animation, stellar score, and standout storytelling say otherwise. Director Kelsey Mann delivers a story that speaks powerfully to the human condition—spoilers ahead. The film introduces new features to the landscape of Riley’s (Kensington Tallman’s) mind. The five cardinal emotions—Joy (Amy Poehler), Sadness (Phyllis Smith), Anger (Lewis Black), Fear (Tony Hale), and Disgust (Liza Lapira)—discover a belief system (represented by an aquifer) at the core of Riley’s mind. Memories (represented by marbles) placed in the aquifer create beliefs (represented by strings). These beliefs cohere into Riley’s “sense of self,” depicted as a plant. Initially, Joy, the chief emotion and the protagonist of Riley’s psyche, curates the set of memories that enter the belief system. Joy keeps “good” memories—like Riley assisting the game-winning hockey goal—and relegates “bad” memories—like Riley earning a penalty that almost cost her team the game—to the “back of the mind.” In the words of Joy, “We keep the best and... toss the rest!” As a result, Riley develops a stunted sense of self. Riley expresses her sense of self in her own words—"I'm a good person.” This declaration reeks of a pelagian naiveté—Riley only thinks that she is a good person because Joy has suppressed the memories of her bad actions. When Riley hits puberty, several new emotions arrive, including Anxiety (Maya Hawke), Envy (Ayo Edebiri), Embarrassment (Paul Walter Hauser), and Ennui (Adèle Exarchopoulos). Anxiety, with her eerie planning capabilities, quickly establishes herself as the ringleader of the new emotions. Anxiety claims her job is to protect Riley from “the scary stuff she can’t see.” When Riley’s best friends and hockey teammates Grace (Grace Lu) and Bree (Sumayyah Nuriddin-Green) tell her that they will be attending a different high school, Anxiety reveals an unseen danger—a friendless four years of high school. Anxiety plans for Riley to abandon Grace and Bree to make friends on the varsity hockey team. When Joy interferes, Anxiety banishes the cardinal emotions from headquarters and sends Riley’s original sense of self to the back of the mind. As the cardinal emotions embark on a journey to rescue Riley’s former sense of self, Anxiety, like Joy before her, begins curating beliefs for Riley. While Joy curates declarative beliefs (“I'm a really good friend”), Anxiety curates conditional beliefs (“If I'm good at hockey, I'll have friends”). To fulfill Anxiety’s conditions, Riley commits several transgressions—she lies, excludes her friends, and sneaks into the coach’s office. Anxiety eventually cultivates a new sense of self for Riley. With echoes of Riley’s former sense of self in the background (“I’m a good person”), Riley develops a new sense of self that makes your stomach drop—”I’m not good enough!” Taken one way, Anxiety’s sense of self is false—Riley’s worth does not hinge on her hockey successes. Taken another way, Anxiety’s sense of self is damningly true. After all, at the back of Riley’s mind is an Everest of failures and immoral actions that Joy has quarantined from Riley’s understanding of herself. While Anxiety reckons with Riley’s flaws, Joy has a similar reckoning as she excavates Riley’s former sense of self from the mountain of bad memories. Joy realizes that the only way back to headquarters is to create an explosion and ride an avalanche of bad memories to the belief system. Amid the avalanche, Joy experiences a quasi-baptismal moment of submersion, overwhelmed by the deluge of Riley’s flaws and need for redemption. Meanwhile, Anxiety attempts to redeem Riley through her own efforts. Anxiety desperately tries to score three goals in a scrimmage to impress the coach and earn a spot on the varsity roster. Anxiety, consumed by this monomaniacal endeavor, has Riley steal the puck from her teammate and collide with Grace, earning Riley a two minute trip to the penalty box. As Anxiety works herself into a frenzy and causes Riley to have a panic attack, Joy surfs to the belief system on a tidal wave of bad memories, which begin to sprout beliefs. Upon arrival at headquarters, Joy admonishes Anxiety, saying, “You don't get to choose who Riley is.” But this admonition also convicts Joy, who realizes that she, like Anxiety, had been trying to dictate who Riley was. Joy discovers that she cannot make Riley good by her will alone. Recognizing her mistake, Joy discards Riley’s former senses of self and allows a new one to grow with bad memories in tow. As the bad memories flood Riley’s sense of self, Riley for the first time gains a painful consciousness of her fallen nature. But this consciousness ultimately equips her to ask for—and receive—unmerited forgiveness from her friend Bree and her (aptly named) friend Grace. This beautiful act of forgiveness allows Riley to experience unalloyed joy, which Pixar represents as sparkles beckoning Joy to the control console. After Riley’s redemptive experience, her mind is once again governed by Joy, but a transformed Joy—a joy aware of Riley’s inadequacy and need for forgiveness. Inside Out 2  teaches an important lesson for children of all ages—we must first recognize our flaws to experience the true joy of forgiveness.

CMC ranked 1st among colleges in student comfort expressing ideas. Photo Credit: WordPress This morning, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) published their 2025 College Free Speech Rankings . After plummeting  to 73rd in the rankings in 2024, Claremont McKenna College (CMC) regained their 2023 ranking of 6th in the country for free speech. The rankings leverage FIRE’s college speech code ratings  as well as College Pulse survey data  from 57,609 students. For the past several years, FIRE has granted  CMC a “Green light” speech code rating, meaning that the college’s policies “nominally protect free speech.” The data include 103 respondents from CMC. Across colleges, CMC ranked 1st in student comfort expressing ideas, 100th in willingness to disrupt campus speaking events, 44th in openness to difficult conversations, 9th in perceived administrative support for free speech, 3rd in tolerance for controversial speakers, and 10th in willingness to self-censor. According to the data, CMC has about 5 students who identify as liberal for every student who identifies as conservative, which is in line with historical data . FIRE also notes that since 2019, CMC administrators have “sanctioned” 3 scholars for speech-related controversies. According to FIRE’s Scholars Under Fire Database , Professors Chris Nadon, Eva Revesz, and Robert Faggen all received administrative backlash for use of the n-word in their classrooms. Other Claremont Colleges fared much worse in the rankings, with Scripps ranked 123rd, Harvey Mudd ranked 153rd, Pitzer ranked 180th, and Pomona ranked 242nd.

BY HENRY LONG IMAGE COURTESY OF THE MIAMI HERALD Throughout his term as Florida governor, Ron DeSantis has signed several K-12 public education reforms into law. The Parental Rights in Education Act , known colloquially as the Don’t Say Gay Bill, grants parents more power to prevent their children from learning about certain topics in school. The Individual Freedom Act , also known as the Stop the Wrongs to Our Kids and Employees (W.O.K.E) Act, prohibits the teaching of specific ideas related to race. Another law adjusts the requirements for the acceptance and retention of books in school libraries. Republican governors across the country are taking similar steps to adjust K-12 public school curricula. As such, it might be enlightening to examine Supreme Court precedent related to these kinds of K-12 public education cases. The Supreme Court has generally recognized that state and local authorities have broad discretion over educational curriculum—within certain constitutional limits. Some of the earliest Supreme Court education cases reveal these limits. In Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Bartels v. Iowa (1923) , the Supreme Court ruled that state laws proscribing the teaching of foreign languages were unconstitutional under the Fourteenth Amendment’s Due Process Clause. According to the Court in Meyer, “the purpose of the legislation was to promote civic development by inhibiting training and education of the immature in foreign tongues and ideals before they could learn English and acquire American ideals.” In his majority opinion, while Justice McReynolds did not question “the State’s power to prescribe a curriculum,” he wrote that “no emergency has arisen which renders knowledge by a child of some language other than English so clearly harmful as to justify its inhibition.” The Court has also been clear that a state’s jurisdiction over the curriculum can be limited on Establishment Clause grounds. In Epperson v. Arkansas (1968) , the Court found an Arkansas statute prohibiting the teaching of evolution to be unconstitutional under the First Amendment since the law was found to be religiously motivated. On behalf of the majority, Justice Fortas wrote that “a State’s right to prescribe the public school curriculum does not include the right to prohibit teaching a scientific theory or doctrine for reasons that run counter to the principles of the First Amendment.” The Court also ruled in Edwards v. Aguillard (1987) that a Louisiana law prohibiting the teaching of evolution unless accompanied by the teaching of creationism was unconstitutional under the First Amendment. Justice Brennan, on behalf of the majority, wrote that “because the primary purpose of the Creationism Act is to endorse a particular religious doctrine, the Act furthers religion in violation of the Establishment Clause.” In a concurrence, Justice Powell clarified that “nothing in the Court's opinion diminishes the traditionally broad discretion accorded state and local school officials in the selection of the public school curriculum.” The Supreme Court has also identified limits to compulsory student speech under the First Amendment. While the Court found that a compulsory pledge of allegiance was constitutionally acceptable in Minersville School District v. Gobitis (1940) , they reversed their decision just three years later in West Virginia State Board of Education v. Barnette (1943) . In the latter case, Justice Jackson, on behalf of the majority, wrote that “Boards of Education . . . have, of course, important, delicate, and highly discretionary functions, but none that they may not perform within the limits of the Bill of Rights.” Thus, the Court has repeatedly affirmed the broad discretion of state and local authorities in matters of educational curricula—provided that their discretion remains within constitutional bounds. Supreme Court precedent on the removal of books from school libraries is more complicated. The Court has only faced one case on this issue— Board of Education, Island Trees Union Free School District No. 26 v. Pico (1982) . In the case, the school board removed books it characterized as “anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Sem[i]tic, and just plain filthy.” The final ruling was messy—the Court only came to a plurality and not a majority decision. The plurality, led by Justice Brennan, acknowledged that while schools have broad discretion over the acquisition of new library books, “the First Amendment imposes limitations upon a local school board’s exercise of its discretion to remove books from high school and junior high school libraries.” While schools could remove books from libraries if they were “pervasively vulgar” or of questionable “educational suitability,” the plurality held that schools could not remove books in a “narrowly partisan or political manner.” The plurality based their conclusion on a “right to receive ideas.” Justice Blackmun, in his partial concurrence, denies that students have any such right. Justice White’s partial concurrence sided with the majority on the ruling but dismissed its constitutional pontification as unnecessary. Regardless of these disagreements, however, Pico demonstrates that schools’ power to remove books is not unlimited. Supreme Court precedent has repeatedly affirmed the discretionary authority of state and local officials to dictate K-12 public school curricula. These precedents mean that as governor, DeSantis has broad leeway to mandate the teaching of certain topics and bar the teaching of others in a K-12 public school classroom. That said, there are limits to this authority. Opponents of DeSantis’s laws have already filed and may continue to file lawsuits under the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and others may file suits challenging DeSantis’s laws as unconstitutionally vague . The courts have already blocked the portions of the Stop W.O.K.E. Act that apply to public colleges and universities. Many of the legal decisions will hinge on how the laws are enforced—both by DeSantis’s Department of Education and by teachers in the classroom. If the application of the laws violates students’ due process rights, limits student expression of certain viewpoints, or is conducted in a narrowly partisan manner, courts might object on constitutional grounds. Ultimately, while DeSantis’s K-12 education laws are no doubt controversial, it remains to be seen whether they will be found unconstitutional.

In 2018, the CMC Board of Trustees published a memo detailing their Open Academy commitments to “freedom of expression, viewpoint diversity, and effective dialogue.” As part of this commitment, the Board vowed to strengthen “student recruiting, faculty and staff hiring, curricular offerings and syllabi choices, invited speakers and engaged formats at the Athenaeum that both bring and take full advantage of viewpoint diversity (whether it derives from experience or belief systems or any combination of the two).” Put simply, the Board committed to recruiting more ideologically diverse students and faculty. The question is: does the data reflect the Board’s commitment to viewpoint diversity? CMC’s oldest available viewpoint diversity data is from the Salvatori Center’s 2016 political attitudes survey, which was conducted 2 years before the 2018 Open Academy memo. According to the data, 53 percent of CMC students identified as liberal, 25 percent as moderate, and 21 percent as conservative, with a liberal-to-conservative ratio of 2.5 to 1. While not perfect, this breakdown reflects a fairly ideologically diverse student body for an elite liberal arts institution. Seven years later, despite the Board’s intervening commitment to viewpoint diversity, ideological diversity at CMC has declined sharply. According to 2024 survey data from CollegePulse and the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE), 58 percent of CMC students identify as liberal, 20 percent as moderate, and 12 percent as conservative, with a liberal-to-conservative ratio of almost 5 to 1. Over these seven years, the conservative population at CMC was cut in half . In the 2018 memo, the Board pronounced that “since its founding, CMC has been a leader in ideological diversity.” Now, if you compare CMC to its peer institutions, CMC is no longer a leader in this regard. In FIRE’s 2024 data, 6 out of the 21 predominantly liberal private colleges with enrollments under 2,000 students had a lower liberal-to-conservative ratio than CMC: Washington and Lee University, DePauw University, Amherst College, Davidson College, Connecticut College, and Berea College. While CMC is still more ideologically diverse than many of its peer institutions like Pomona and Pitzer, CMC is no longer a leader among liberal arts colleges in regard to its ideological diversity. This summer, I attended the Summer Honors Academy, an academic program at the American Enterprise Institute, which is nonpartisan but known as a center-right institution. According to the organization’s website , “the program gathers students from diverse ideological backgrounds for substantive dialogue and debate about the most pressing issues facing the country and world.” Every year, AEI publishes the political attitudes of its participants. In 2023, 48 percent of AEI students identified as conservative, 12 percent as moderate, and 30 percent as liberal, with a conservative-to-liberal ratio of just over 1.5. It’s disappointing that an ideologically oriented organization can attract a greater modicum of political diversity than CMC, a non-ideological liberal arts college purportedly committed to viewpoint diversity. As a disclaimer, given the small sample sizes, the possible response bias, and other difficulties, no political attitude survey of the CMC student body will be perfect. Some have critiqued FIRE’s methodology and rightly indicated the difficulty of drawing conclusions from the data. That said, the data seem to paint a bleak picture of the outlook for ideological diversity at CMC. Political ideology ratios are also a blunt metric for viewpoint diversity. Geographic, religious, socioeconomic, and ethnic diversity likewise enrich campus discourse. Regardless, political diversity is probably the best proxy we have for viewpoint diversity. If the Board truly values viewpoint diversity at CMC, they must renew their commitment and address the sharp decline in students who identify themselves as conservative. In the board’s own words, “freedom of expression without an equal commitment to viewpoint diversity is of little value.”

Claremont McKenna College, by virtue of its esteemed Robert Day School of Economics, renowned Soll Center for Student Opportunity, and prestigious Robert Day Scholars program, has garnered a reputation as perhaps the pre-professional liberal arts college. Is this a fundamental contradiction of terms? Could a CMC education be at odds with the liberal arts? First and foremost, what exactly are the liberal arts? The term “liberal” in “liberal arts” is derived from the Latin word libertas , which translates to “freedom.” But what kind of freedom? Historically, the “liberal arts” stood in contrast to the “servile arts,” which encompassed education in trades like masonry. Institutions focusing on vocational, trade, and technical education fall under the servile arts, as would pre-medicine and pre-law undergraduate programs. While the servile arts are important and often overlooked, their objectives and methodologies differ markedly from those of the liberal arts. In my Classical Philosophy course this semester, we read Plato’s Republic , a staple of most liberal arts curricula. In the book, Socrates describes three types of goods: those valuable for their own sake, those valuable for their consequences, and those valuable both for their own sake and for their consequences. Socrates places knowledge in the category of goods valuable for their own sake and for their consequences. While the servile arts are concerned with the aspects of knowledge that are useful for other purposes, the liberal arts are concerned with knowledge insofar as it is intrinsically valuable. This summer, I took a course about the liberal arts under (married) Baylor Professors David and Elizabeth Corey. In a 2013 article , David Corey explains that “only at a great liberal arts college do we find people engaged in history, science, physics, music, and art as ends in themselves , not as a prelude to a job or a stepping stone to ‘success.’” Elizabeth Corey likewise laments how modern colleges too often sideline liberal education to promote predetermined practical or political purposes. Under these premises, the CMC ethos seems somewhat anathema to the liberal arts. According to its mission, CMC seeks to “prepare its students for thoughtful and productive lives and responsible leadership,” suggesting that a CMC education is but a prelude for a future career rather than an end in itself. CMC’s unofficial motto is “learning for the sake of doing,” implying that the ultimate purpose of a CMC education is the future doing rather than the present learning. The unofficial motto also raises an important question: Learning for the sake of doing… what? A liberal arts education is meant to answer these questions—not assume them from the outset. Another professorial couple under whom I studied, Ben and Jenna Storey, argue that “many institutions today have forgotten that liberal education itself was meant to teach the art of choosing, to train the young to use reason to decide which endeavors merit the investment of their lives.” In other words, liberal arts education is not simply deliberation about means. If a student has a particular goal, call it X, a liberal arts education is not about showing the student the most effective way to accomplish X. Rather, a liberal arts education involves a deliberation about ends that will challenge the student to defend and possibly reevaluate her original goal X. This is why the growing lack of viewpoint diversity at CMC is so alarming. If most of a student’s peers have similar beliefs about value, purpose, and meaning, the student loses out on opportunities to learn about competing conceptions of the good life and might leave CMC with some of her most fundamental beliefs unchallenged. CMC’s official motto, “ crescit cum commercio civitas ,” translated as “civilization prospers with commerce,” runs counter to the liberal arts project in a more subtle way. Claremont Independent columnist Charlie Hatcher writes , “as a student seeking a liberal education, I oppose any effort for my college to take an institutional stance on political issues. To do so would be an offense to the university’s truth-seeking mission.” But that is exactly what CMC’s motto does: take an institutional stance on a political issue. The motto makes debatable claims about the nature of civilizational flourishing and the value of commerce. Regardless of whether you find this particular position objectionable, it seems an affront to the liberal arts for a college to assert it dogmatically. As someone who loves both the unique character of CMC and the special project of the liberal arts, the tension between the two is difficult for me to reconcile. And certainly, there are professors, students, and administrators at CMC who are genuinely interested in the liberal arts project. But I think that CMC education might be improved by an increased emphasis on the intrinsic rather than extrinsic value of knowledge and a greater willingness to ask and answer questions about fundamental values.

On April 5, 2024, about twenty students occupied  Pomona President Gabrielle Starr’s office in Alexander Hall. On April 6, 2017, exactly seven years before the final activists were released from the Claremont Jail, about 250 protestors obstructed  the entrance of Claremont McKenna College’s Athenaeum to prevent author Heather MacDonald from speaking. Campus protests like these are deeply American. Since the free speech movement  at Berkeley in the 1960s, students have leveraged free assembly to advocate for myriad causes, resorting to civil disobedience where protected expression has failed. But might protests distract from the university’s role as a truth-seeking institution and undermine liberal education? David Corey explains  that liberal education involves the study of subjects like “history, science, physics, music, and art as ends in themselves ” rather than as a means to some practical, professional , or political end. In other words, liberal education is liberal  because it is freed from practical concerns. Elizabeth Corey argues  that when universities prioritize activism, they regard education as “a vehicle for the intellectual and moral transformation of society” rather than as an end in itself. At such universities, she writes, “students arrive with views already formed, ready to get the diploma that will allow them to go out and act as agents of social change.” Two recent   op-eds  in The Student Life (TSL)  condemn Pomona for infringing activists’ “​​right to free speech.” Beyond conflating civil disobedience and protected speech, the authors misunderstand the purpose of campus free expression. Free expression commitments are meant to promote  the fearless pursuit of truth in the classroom—not to indulge megaphones and megalomania on the campus quad. For this reason, Claremont Colleges policies  include content-neutral restrictions on protests that are peaceful but disruptive to the academic mission of the colleges. Moreover, walk-outs and sit-ins are not particularly educational . Regardless of the activists’ cause, demonstrations that involve skipping class or occupying educational facilities distract from liberal education. Both TSL  writers object, instead claiming that activism is essential to liberal education. They insist that liberal education is vain if classroom learning is not applied into practical action through “praxis.” But the invocation of “praxis” betrays a fundamental misunderstanding of the liberal arts project. “Praxis,” originally a Greek term used by Aristotle, was co-opted by Karl Marx and later by Paulo Freire. Those who invoke praxis in relation to education reveal themselves—whether knowingly or unknowingly—as disciples of Freire. In his seminal work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed , Freire writes that “only men are  praxis, the praxis which, as the reflection and action which truly transform reality, is the source of knowledge and creation.” Since praxis continually shapes reality and is the source of knowledge, “education is thus constantly remade in the praxis.” Under this view, education is and only ought to be a medium for actively reshaping the world. Freire’s pedagogy aims at liberation—albeit a very different kind of liberation than the one offered by liberal education. Freire understands liberation as a continual struggle towards the removal of external limitations on human self-affirmation. According to Freire, nothing is constant except the eternal struggle for liberation. History has no final horizon, and there is no telos  or final end for the human person. David Corey writes  that Paulo Freire’s model of “liberation education is rapidly replacing the older educational tradition known as liberal education.” While liberal education focuses on knowledge insofar as it is intrinsically  valuable, liberation education focuses on knowledge insofar as it is instrumentally  valuable in the fight for liberation. But if, as Freire admits, the Sisyphean struggle for liberation is endless, the value of knowledge can never be realized. As such, while activism may indeed be a noble pursuit, it is a pursuit antithetical to liberal education. Liberal education and disinterested study  demand a modicum of separation  from the concerns of daily life. Activism renders education a mere means of prolonging the quotidian quest for political liberation. Back in 1969, at the height of the Vietnam War, Claremont Colleges faculty voted to cancel classes amidst escalating student protests . Harry Neumann, a philosophy professor at Scripps, continued to hold class. When a faculty member asked whether Neumann would ever close the university, Neumann replied, “when all the answers to all the important questions have been found, then it would be appropriate to close the university, and for all the people who have all the answers to all the important questions, the university is already closed.” Let us not prematurely close the university, for there is still much learning to do.

From 8 a.m. Thursday morning until 8 a.m. Friday morning, CMC students had the opportunity to vote on a resolution   passed  by the Associated Students of Claremont McKenna College (ASCMC). The header of the resolution describes its purpose: On April 5, 2024, Pomona College’s administration called for the arrest of Claremont Colleges students as they exercised their right to free speech and assembly in support of divestment from ‘Israeli apartheid and weapons manufacturing.’ We condemn the escalation of violence on campus by Pomona College and the administration’s subsequent institutional retaliation due to their chilling impact on discourse, free speech, and the principles of Open Academy. We also reject the use of police due to their presence causing particular risk for Black, Indigenous, brown, Undocumented, and other students. In light of these findings, we call for the 7C Demonstration Policy and CMC FAQs to be revised to protect students’ right to protest and speech. The resolution was approved by 22% percent of the student body and rejected by 9% of the student body. Out of a student body of 1362 students, 419 submitted ballots for a voter turnout of 31%. Of students who submitted a ballot, 70% voted to approve the resolution and 30% voted to reject.  According to ASCMC Chief Ethics and Procedural Officer Paloma Oliveri, “Approval of this resolution means that ASCMC will continue to collaborate with the authors and DOS to determine next steps. We will be in touch shortly with further updates.”

Harris’s rise to the top of the ticket awakened an enthusiasm for Democrats not felt since the Obama administration. Harris speaking at the 2019 California Democratic Party Convention (Credit: Gage Skidmore via Flickr) Over the past months, as the country grew increasingly devoid of hope for unity among its political leaders, as turmoil abroad and rumors of economic downturn stoked an unsettling fear within Americans, and the stakes of a Biden or Trump re-election climbed ever higher, Kamala Harris emerged as a meme on internet platforms everywhere.  Her token laugh was edited into songs, her word-salads mocked, and the all too familiar coconut-tree video  either made viewers think she was funny or delirious. Vice President Harris even embraced some of the digital fanfare herself, adding the phrase coined by Drew Barrymore, “ Momala ” onto her official Instagram bio. But now, Harris can no longer exist simply as a memeable figure in the comfortable but ceremonious office of Vice President—at least not if she wants a chance to win the race for the White House.  As pressure mounted for Biden to step down, conversations over who might replace him began. Interestingly, those conversations did not immediately center around Harris—most eyes were on Gretchen Whitmer or Gavin Newsom. Though, when push came to shove and President Biden endorsed Harris shortly after he dropped out, the conversation shifted from whether Whitmer or Newsom might replace him to whether either one of the Democratic governors might be the vice presidential pick for the Harris campaign.  Many Republicans were happy to hear that Biden dropped out and happier still to see the Democrats rally so fiercely behind Harris. At first glance, the disorganization of the Democratic party and sudden dropping out of the incumbent seemed great news for Trump. But there is good reason to fear the Harris campaign, and if Harris plays her cards right, she will have a better chance at election than Biden ever did. For starters, while Trump is the oldest person to receive the nomination of a major U.S. political party, Harris is the first woman of color to do the same. Moreover, Harris had the highest fundraising day of 2024 on July 21st and has raised over $500 million  since Biden dropped out. It is clear, then, that Harris’s rise to the top of the ticket awakened an enthusiasm for Democrats not felt since the Obama administration.  The problem with Biden was that he defined himself merely as a foil to Trump. Sure, voters were rightfully worried about his speaking and thinking abilities, but he never provided voters with anything more than the sense that a vote for him was a vote taken from Trump. Because of this, the two became sworn enemies. Each side fashioned the other as a monster capable of ruining America by his own hand. Harris, with her laugh and carefree demeanor, seems incapable of inspiring the same sort of hatred and energy that made the stakes of the election feel so high. With a successful campaign behind her, Harris can remind voters of more traditional Democratic candidates from years past—not one who heralds the imminence of a possible civil war. Trump may say a defeat of Harris will be easier , but polls say otherwise . And those who found comfort in Trump, might soon wake up in a cold sweat, realizing that whatever he claimed to bring to the table was not worth the tranquility and unity of an entire people. The best thing Harris can do is separate herself from Trump’s hostility. Biden never did, which ensured that he never developed the cult of personality that might have otherwise defended him from attacks on his age and competence. The cornerstone of the Harris campaign will have to be assuring voters that those viral clips of Kamala word-salads, seemingly devoid of substance, can be backed by real legislative and political vision.  In  her role as Vice President, Harris was not obligated to fashion her own platform. Now, her ability to do so with conviction and aptitude will determine whether the Democrats secure victory in November.

This article was published in conjunction with The Claremont Independent . On Friday, Claremont Police arrested 20 demonstrators from the Claremont Colleges during a protest for Palestinians in Gaza. Over 100 protesters followed the arrested students from Alexander Hall to the Claremont Jail. Some protestors were released later that evening, and the rest were released just after midnight. The arrests came as student groups including Pomona Divest Apartheid and Students for Justice in Palestine have been demanding that Pomona College divest from all companies with ties to Israel. According to a press release by Pomona Divest Apartheid, over the past week, demonstrators built a “mock apartheid wall on Pomona College’s Marston Quad” as a piece of “protest art.” At just after 1:00 p.m. on Friday, Pomona College administrators and campus safety personnel began to dismantle the mock apartheid wall. Shortly after 4:00 p.m., protestors entered Alexander Hall, an administrative building at Pomona. At least 18 students occupied Pomona President Gabrielle Starr’s office, with dozens more occupying the hallway outside of her office. Over 100 additional protesters congregated around the building and began to chant: “Israel bombs, Pomona pays, how many kids did you kill today?” “Stop the killing, stop the slaughter, Gaza has no food or water” and “Up, up with liberation, down, down with occupation.” At 4:26 p.m., President Starr sent an email to the student body affirming the college’s commitment to students’ “right to protest,” though she expressed concern over protestors wearing masks and refusing to identify themselves. According to Starr, Pomona administrators and campus safety removed protestor materials from the Smith Campus Center in preparation for a Sunday event. Starr wrote that at this point, students began to “verbally harass staff” and used “a sickening, anti-black racial slur in addressing an administrator.” Starr stated that Pomona students involved in the Smith Campus Center or Alexander Hall events would be subject to “immediate suspension” and that other demonstrators would be “banned from campus.” A recording  shows President Starr making the same consequences known to students in Alexander Hall. Shortly thereafter, more than a dozen squad cars from the Claremont, Pomona, Azusa, La Verne, and Covina police departments arrived on the scene. The officers were dispatched with riot gear and tear gas launchers. At 5:20 p.m., all Claremont College students were notified  via text about “Police activity at Pomona Campus, Alexander Hall.” Despite being warned to “stay away from the area where law enforcement personnel are present,” students began to congregate around Alexander Hall to spectate. Shortly after 6:00 p.m., police began arresting demonstrators. They escorted  protestors out of Alexander Hall in several small groups with their hands zip-tied behind their backs while other protestors jeered and cursed at the officers. In total, the police charged 18 students with misdemeanor trespassing. During one of the arrests , a female student obstructed an officer’s path. The officer grabbed her arms and pulled her along with him. One of his colleagues then shoved her. The officers took her behind police lines, zip-tied her hands, and loaded her into a white van with other arrested protesters. The officers charged the student with misdemeanor delaying or obstructing a law enforcement officer, making for 20 total arrests. Shortly after 7:00 p.m., after the police finished taking the 19 students into custody, protestors migrated to the Claremont Jail, which is less than a mile away. According to the City of Claremont , the jail typically only houses up to 18 inmates. Around this time, local television crews and news helicopters arrived on the scene. For over 4 hours, over 100 protestors stood outside the gate of the jail. Protestors chanted more slogans: “Instead of divesting, Pomona is arresting,” “We smell bacon.” Other chants compared the Claremont Police Department to the Ku Klux Klan. Protestors provided snacks and honked car horns. According to student journalist Samson Zhang, police began to release protestors from custody around 9:30 p.m. The released students were greeted with applause and hugs from their fellow demonstrators. At 12:07 a.m. on Saturday morning, the Claremont Police Department announced over loudspeaker that all Claremont Colleges students arrested for trespassing had been released. Shortly thereafter, protestors announced their intention to continue their activism until Pomona divests from all companies with ties to Israel. They dispersed around 12:30 a.m.

This article was published in conjunction with the Claremont Independent. On Friday, 20 students were arrested at Pomona College after refusing to identify themselves while occupying a campus building during a protest for Palestinians in Gaza. All of the protesters have since been released. On Saturday morning, members of the Claremont chapter of Students for Justice in Palestine began calling for Pomona President Gabrielle Starr’s immediate resignation for what they called her “fascistic” and “absolutely reprehensible” conduct. Starr characterized the protest as part of a series of escalating incidents on campus in recent months. The activists, on the other hand, said that tensions rose after Pomona College administrators and campus safety personnel began to dismantle the mock apartheid wall on Friday around 1:00 p.m. In the days leading up to the protest, some students had been sleeping in tents in front of the wall outside the Smith Campus Center Lawn. According to President Starr, the activists had consistently targeted campus tour groups in recent weeks. Shortly after 4:00 p.m., protestors entered Alexander Hall, an administrative building at Pomona. At least 18 students occupied Pomona President Gabrielle Starr’s office, with dozens more occupying the hallway outside her office. A video posted by Pomona Divest Apartheid shows President Starr addressing the protesters inside Alexander Hall. Starr can be heard saying: “Everyone in this building is immediately subject to suspension. Harassment is following me with a camera; that is now clear. If you do not leave within the next ten minutes, every student in this building is immediately suspended from this institution… If you are from elsewhere, you will immediately be banned from this campus.” Starr authorized a call to the police, and more than two dozen officers arrived on campus, many wearing riot gear. The officers informed protesters they would be arrested if they did not leave. Shortly after 6:00 p.m., police began arresting demonstrators. They escorted protestors out of Alexander Hall in several small groups with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. The next morning, SJP organizers discussed their next steps in a Telegram group chat. One wrote, “A faculty member informed me that they need at least 30 tenured and tenured track professors to have an emergency meeting to prevent [President Starr] from suspending the students. Right now they have at least 35…” Another responded, “[As far as I know,] they do not have the power to stop the suspensions but will be trying to do a vote of no confidence with her / possibly push out a statement” SJP members also circulated email templates calling for President Starr’s resignation. The templates read: "The public has been made aware of egregious transgressions done against students at Pomona College following their college sit-in in protest of the institution’s involvement with the genocidal state of Israel. Despite their peaceful demonstration and very reasonable demands by virtue of the currently inconsolable brutality being committed by the settler state’s regime against Palestinians." "As a result of your contribution to normalizing this genocidal settler state’s existence and the repression of students on your campus calling for justice by calling a riot squad for their arrest and removal, students and the public demand the following: Should you demonstrate any semblance of having learned from your transgressions, as your final act as president, you will agree to your institution’s divestment in all regards from the genocidal state of Israel." "As a supposed representative of your institution, your conduct has been fascistic in nature and absolutely reprehensible. Should you have any shame for your conduct, you will resign, drop the charges made on students, and revoke their suspensions immediately." "Following these acts in this order, students and the public demand for your immediate resignation as president of this institution." Activists are encouraging members of the community to send these templated emails to the Pomona administration. Claremont Faculty for Justice in Palestine expressed their support for the demonstrators but stopped short of calling for President Starr’s resignation. They called upon Starr and Pomona to: “Immediately drop all charges against students; refrain from suspending students, who were exercising their protected rights to free speech and protest…" “Immediately reinstate any students who have been suspended already; refrain from banning non-Pomona students from campus…" “Apologize to the students and the Pomona College community for this violent and inappropriate escalation and police intervention on campus.”