It’s been said many times — “Safety first.” And at Pomona College, they’re dedicated to the directive.
Apropos of asylum, the elite private Southern California school boasts an association welcoming almost all races: the Students of Color Alliance (SOCA). And the group happens to have a lounge.
To access the lounge, an electronic ID is required. In order to attain one, each student must complete a form which requests his or her identity group.
The security system was approved by the administration last month; ClaremontSOCA announced as much on Instagram:
Previously, there was no standardized process for granting swipe access to the lounge which limited the use of the space as it was intended. Moving forward, there will be a Google form that students of color can fill out to request swipe access to the space.
Groups included in the Student of Color Alliance:
Latinx Alliance
Caballeros & Señoritas Student Alliance
Eritrean and Ethiopian Student Association
African Student Association
Women of Pre-Health
Asian American Resource Center
In case you haven’t heard, People of the Pale are presently a pinch persona non grata:
At Pomona, they’re making magic. However, despite the Alliance of all the nonwhite groups, all the nonwhite groups are not aligned.
Per a report by The College Fix, there’s been a bit of a turf war:
Last month’s swipe-access decision was made amid larger turmoil over the lounge after Pomona’s Black Student Union was displaced due to campus construction and administration decided to “build a wall” to bisect the Students of Color Alliance lounge, partitioning off a portion for the BSU.
…
A “Stop the Wall” protest was launched in November, with students of color arguing they should be given their own exclusive “safe space” on campus, according to their solidarity statement.
SOCA’s statement:
The lounge is already shared by five student groups on campus, and building the wall would mean that our shared space would be minimized and limit our capacity to hold a safe space for students on campus.
The press release points to nothing wrong:
There is nothing wrong or ungrateful about requesting that both groups with differing goals, interests, and events have the safe spaces necessary to make it through the antiBlack white capitalist institution, Pomona College.
That sounds like a difficult institution to navigate. Hopefully, everyone will survive Pomona College — where diversity, equity and inclusion sometimes — as it appears — necessitates the opposite of diversity and inclusion.
Story cited here.
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