Last week, when pro-Palestinian protesters camped out on the stage at Pomona College where its graduation ceremony was about to take place, school leaders decided to move Sunday’s graduation ceremony to Los Angeles.
The graduation ceremony, held at the Shrine Auditorium, started at 6 p.m., but protesters also took action. More than 100 people gathered outside the auditorium Sunday afternoon and clashed with law enforcement officers. Los Angeles police said protesters attacked them, with one demonstrator saying officers hit people in the stomach with batons.
The academy said extra security measures will be in place at the event, with dozens of Los Angeles Police Department officers on hand. Police lined up outside the venue and protesters held banners and shouted through loudspeakers.
Several Pomona College graduates dressed in costumes led the crowd in chants of “Free Palestine.”
At times, demonstrators jostled police as they tried to secure the area around the auditorium. Officials told KABC-7 some protesters attacked police, and one was arrested after trying to attack an officer.
Later, around 6:30 p.m., protesters left the Shrine Auditorium and gathered in a courtyard, where a Pomona College student, wearing a graduation gown, read a statement calling for an end to the war and demanding the university divest itself of financial ties. Israel.
Tawa Khalid, a member of the local chapter of the Palestinian Youth Movement, said the protesters started from West 32nd Street and divided into two groups, one on 32nd Street and the other near Jefferson Avenue.
Clashes with police “escalated from zero to 100 without any warning,” she said.
Police pushed Khalid and several others, pushing some to the ground and beating them with batons, including hitting several female protesters in the abdomen, Khalid said.
“Many of my friends are now scarred and in poor health,” Khalid said.
Khalid said that when police pushed a Muslim protester to the ground, they pulled off her headscarf.
Khalid said she saw a legal observer from the National Lawyers Guild, who was wearing a neon green hat and could easily be seen observing police activity, being pushed to the ground by a police officer.
“This just shows that they are trying to intimidate students and punish them for exercising their First Amendment rights,” Khalid said.
Among the protesters outside the Shrine Auditorium on Sunday were those wearing Pomona College graduation caps and gowns.
(Jason Almond/Los Angeles Times)
By around 7 p.m., most pro-Palestinian protesters had dispersed from the campus courtyard, and police cordoned off the area around the Holy Land Auditorium.
Some family members of graduates arrived late to the ceremony holding flowers but were briefly blocked by a police cordon. However, a police officer intervened and allowed them to pass so they could attend the graduation ceremony.
Los Angeles Police Department public information officer Tony Im said he could not issue a statement or respond Sunday night to what protesters claimed happened because he had not been briefed.
Pomona College’s decision to postpone commencement follows the University of Southern California’s decision to cancel its traditional main campus commencement ceremony and hold an alternative celebration at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. Thursday’s event included fireworks and a drone display.
Like USC, pro-Palestinian protests have engulfed the Pomona campus, with student activists demanding that the college publicly call for a ceasefire and withdraw from companies related to Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip and the occupation of Palestinian territories. Endowment Fund. In April, police in riot gear arrested 19 protesters who occupied the university president’s office.
Also on Sunday, about 30 students graduating from Harvey Mudd College, a private liberal arts college in Claremont, had “Severing Defense Ties” written on their mortarboards, referring to demands also made by other colleges and universities to divest from defense contracts. .
The faculty member told The Times that some students took out small Palestinian flags and posed for photos with Mudd President Harriet B. Nembhard as they walked up to the podium after their names were called. Other students pulled out banners that read “Free Palestine” and “No technology can be used for genocide.”
Taking into account the tens of thousands of Palestinians, mostly women and children, who have been killed in Israeli bombings and ground offensives, Saachi Patel, student speaker at Sunday’s graduation, said in her speech that And how her school coped, her graduation and degree meant so little to her.
“Today, I am thinking of the global student-led uprisings and resistance movements that have been demanding that universities break away from apartheid and occupation and cut ties with corporations seeking to profit from war,” said Patel, who said she Support the “Mudders Against Murder” movement launched earlier this year.
Her microphone was not cut off and she was allowed to finish her speech. Some graduates gave her a standing ovation and some families cheered, the faculty member said.
Times staff writer Jenny Gold contributed to this report.
