Lack of a quorum at last Friday’s faculty meeting prevented passage of a resolution opposing punishment of protestors that blocked Pendelton on March 25-27. Professor of Psychology Suzanne Thompson presented the resolution to the faculty, and Professor of Politics Lorn Foster called for a quorum. After a count determined that a quorum was not present, the meeting was officially dissolved.

At the beginning of the meeting, President Peter Stanley made a statement regarding his decision to proceed with charges against the protestors.

"I am not prepared to intervene [with Dean Quinley’s decision to turn the charges over to the Judiciary Board]," Stanley said. "I believe accountability for one’s actions is a cardinal rule of citizenship. Part of civil disobedience is putting oneself on the line. The bottom line is that [pardoning] irresponsible action is not a way of educating. It would be educationally bankrupt to say that a student is not to be held accountable for wrong actions."

While Stanley argued that he would have responded differently had the protests taken place on Pomona’s campus, but he was not prepared to disregard the decisions that CEO of Claremont University Consortium (CUC) Brenda Barham Hill made.

"My own view of civil disobedience is that, when buildings are blocked, you make a point of being slow to anger…to leave space for negotiations, opinions to change, and emotions to quell," Stanley said, "[But in this case] 1000 hourly workers paychecks [were at stake]. This was pointed out to demonstrators. They were asked if six payroll workers could go in [to the building] and they declined. I am not going to second guess Brenda Barham Hill that [payroll] was a function that could not be interrupted."

Later in the meeting Thompson presented the faculty resolution, which was drawn up by Professors Richard Worthington, Rachel Levin, Catalin Mitescu, David Arase, Rick Hazlitt, and Thompson. The proposed resolution stated that the faculty opposes sanctioning the students and asks the president to ask the CUC Board of Overseers to open a dialogue with the college community regarding BFS.

The resolution was drafted after discussion at a faculty forum, which took place on Tuesday. Thompson stated that one issue that came out in the forum was the nature of the CUC response to the protestors.

"[The reponse] tended to be immediate, which is what troubles most people…[It rapidly] escalated to the highest degree of intimidation and threat…We expect something different from an intellectual community," Thompson said.

Thompson said that another troubling point was the language in the CUC Disruption Guidelines. According to Thompson, CUC can only refer students to their home college for summary suspension. Barham Hill’s letter to the students stated that they were summarily suspended. "[This seems to be an abuse of power," Thompson said.

There has been some debate as to whether this is a correct assessment of the division of power between the colleges. Dean of Students Ann Quinley, in response to this question, said that Barham Hill has the authority to summarily suspend, as granted by the disruption guidelines, but that CUC has no ability to carry out the suspensions. The suspensions are therefore recommended to the students’ home colleges.

"The colleges agree among themselves that if something happens [at one campus involving a student from another campus], the home campus will enforce [sanctions]," Quinley said.

Stanley said that Barham Hill was implementing standing policy. "[But there seems to be] a real inconsistency between the intent and the precise wording [of the policy]," he said.

In this situation, Quinley said that she did not find summary suspensions to be the proper response, and so she chose not to enforce them.

Though the meeting was officially dissolved, an unofficial discussion followed. A majority of those faculty who took part in the discussion spoke in favor of the resolution. The Student Life sent out an unofficial poll to all faculty members, asking how they would vote on the resolution were it to come up again. Of the 16 people who responded to the poll, 11 voted for it and 5 against.

According to Worthington, because no vote was made on the resolution it will remain on the agenda for the next faculty meeting, which will take place in the end of April. When asked if at this point it would be ineffective, he said yes. "[But based on the comments [Stanley] made at the beginning of the meeting, I doubt he would support [the resolution] anyway."

"When the faculty passes a resolution, you take it seriously," Stanley said. "[But] I am not going to ask [Dean Quinley] to withdraw the charges…If the faculty resolved, I would pass along [their sentiments regarding an open discussion] to the Board of Overseers, but they are 17 members and they’re not going to [change their minds]. An overwhelming majority of the Board feel that they have compromised enough."