The Claremont Colleges have made it very clear to their students that incidents which occur within the college community will, to the greatest extent possible, be handled within the college community. All of the schools have judiciary boards, so that students may be tried democratically by juries of their peers. Beyond this, some more serious disciplinary issues are dealt with through communication with college deans.

Pomona’s trustees want to move all freshmen to South Campus. They hired a consulting firm to report on the quality of campus life, and the consulting firm charged them thousands of dollars to tell them what every Pomona student already knows: housing for sophomores sucks. So why not move all freshmen to South Campus in order to improve the housing situation for sophomores?

All joking aside though folks, my concern here is that in focusing solely on the field station and not on Keck, these protesters are setting themselves up for a possible victory with the field station at the expense of getting Keck built somewhere else. And when it does get built someplace else, it will probably be as a part of a compromise with the field station people. Now, I might be way off base here in assuming that most people who care about the field station also care about Keck but I don’t think so, and to that end, it seems counterproductive to me for you guys to bracket off these two issues.

A conversation at dinner on Monday inspired me to write this letter regarding the recent protest for Bernard Field Station at Pendleton. While I support the protestors’ right to be heard, I am frustrated by the lack of focus and strategy on their part. On the flip side, I am even more frustrated by the apathy and conscious lack of effort by students on the campuses to understand what is going on.

Unquestionably, the topics of race (and racism), ethnicity, class, culture, religion, gender, and sexual orientation are ones of a very sensitive nature, yet they still need to be addressed. Addressing these issues correctly, however, can often be problematic. How does one disclose information about a unique life experience without fear of scrutiny, ridicule or lack of sympathy? Why does the burden of education about race issues often rest on the shoulders of people of color?