A group of students and community activists have come together to protest Pomona College’s choice of Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano as the college’s 2010 commencement speaker.

The group, which calls itself the May 16th Coalition, opposes Napolitano’s immigration enforcement program and plans to demonstrate on graduation day, May 16.

“She is seen as someone who basically is designing policies that violate people’s civil rights and really do kind of terrorize the surrounding community,” Nick Gerber PO ’10 said. “We feel like we have to respond to her coming, because otherwise we would sort of be implicitly endorsing those policies, and that’s what we feel the college is doing by inviting her.”

Gerber was among a group of five coalition representatives who went to Pomona President David Oxtoby on Monday to formally ask that Napolitano’s invitation be rescinded. According to those who met with Oxtoby, he listened to their concerns and promised to represent their views to the Board of Trustees but did not give the impression that a change of plan was likely.

“I told them that I would consult with others in the Pomona College community, which I am doing now,” Oxtoby said. “I should say up front that I would have serious concerns if a careful process of selection, involving students, faculty, and Trustees, were to be short-circuited.”

Oxtoby added he hoped students would be open to a speaker who held different views from their own.

“I fully anticipate that some people coming to graduation will have the view that the Obama Administration is too lenient on issues of illegal immigration, while others will think they are too tough,” he said. “I hope that we can engage in a thoughtful fashion with serious issues where there is disagreement, and that there is a place even for controversial views on our campus.”

The May 16th Coalition is not planning a protest at the commencement ceremony itself. Rather, protestors will march from the Greyhound bus station on Indian Hill Boulevard to a public park in downtown Claremont, where organizers intend to hold a peaceful rally on the day of graduation. Protest organizers chose the Greyhound station as the starting place for the march because officers of the U.S. Border Patrol, an agency within the Department of Homeland Security, have checked individuals’ papers and issued deportations there on several recent occasions.

“Myself, and I think everyone who’s involved with what’s going on, want to be respectful and don’t want to disrupt graduation,” Gerber said. “This is not at all about students graduating or their families…but it’s Janet Napolitano and what she represents and what she’s doing.”

However, Gerber said that he and a few other graduating seniors feel it is important to demonstrate their objection to Napolitano in some way during the ceremony. One option they are considering is to turn their backs on her while she speaks.

“Because we’re there as students, I think we will try to think of something that we can do to show our concern,” Gerber said.

Some seniors said they think it would be inappropriate to overshadow the special occasion of graduation with political demonstration.

“While I hope that their protest respects the sanctity that comes hand-in-hand with commencement, I look highly upon individuals who stand up for what they believe in,” Senior Class President Calvin Kagan said. “Immigration is a highly emotional topic, and it is not surprising that these aspects of Ms. Napolitano’s job are controversial.”

According to Jackie Pomeroy PO ’11, who is an intern at the Pomona Economic Opportunity Center (PEOC), a day labor center in Pomona, the planned rally is endorsed by the National Day Labor Organizing Network, the Coalition for Humane Immigrant Rights of Los Angeles, theInstituteof Popular Education of Southern California, the SanBernardinoCommunityServiceCenter, the Rapid Response Network, the Latino Roundtable of Pomona and San Gabriel Valleys, and Pomona Habla.

“The Department of Homeland Security, especially under the leadership of Secretary Napolitano, has been seen to expand and worsen really harsh tactics of immigration enforcement,” said Suzanne Foster, executive drector of PEOC. “We ourselves, working with day laborers in the region, have seen the direct impacts of the use of quotas, street-place raids, and abuses of civil rights among day laborers, immigrant workers, and Latinos in general.”

Foster has been attending the May 16th Coalition’s meetings and was among the representatives who met with Oxtoby on Monday. She will be presenting at an informational forum Monday, Apr. 19 at 4:15 p.m. in Smith Campus Center 208.

According to Pitzer Sociology Professor and immigrants’ rights activist Jose Caldern, also among those who met with Oxtoby, the May 16th Coalition hopes to take advantage of Napolitano’s visit to raise awareness and build a demand for accountability for promises President Barack Obama made to the immigrant community during his campaign.

“This is not just a local issue,” Caldern said. “It is a national issue.”