Claremont Independent

Schools that begin banning songs end up banning people. So seems to be the lesson from Pomona College, where this semester saw the banning of David Daleiden CMC '11 and Kyle Kinneberg CMC '09 for having the temerity to film Serena Josel, a pro-choice speaker, and for asking tough questions of her employer, Planned Parenthood of Los Angeles (PPLA.)

Live Action, a life-rights advocacy group, has, in several undercover videos, exposed a nationwide, systematic Planned Parenthood policy of covering up of statutory rape of young girls. Josel came on February 19 to speak to VOX, a pro-Planned Parenthood club on campus. It would have been nice to hear Josel, who is one of Planned Parenthood's PR agents, defend her organization against these troubling accusations. David and Kyle attended the meeting in order to give her an opportunity to do exactly this.

The exchange between David and Josel was both frank and polite. However, Josel abruptly cut off conversation when one of the other attendees at the meeting told her that David was the president of the Claremont chapter of Live Action. As soon as she learned that David was not her sycophant, she claimed that she did not want to "stoke" David's cause. It is, after all, the stated policy of Planned Parenthood not to debate or engage pro-life students. Later, she realized that Kinneberg, another member of Live Action Claremont, had been filming her talk. She excoriated the two for filming and threatened them, saying that videotaping her was against the law. She demanded that they turn over the tape. David and Kyle repeatedly and rightly stated that they were not violating the law, because the event was open to the public, and therefore there was no reasonable expectation of privacy under California state law. David and Kyle refused to delete their footage. They left the event, which Josel canceled shortly thereafter.

That could have been the end of it, but administration sources reported in February that PPLA had contacted Pomona College after Live Action's initial taping. We do not know much about that conversation, but it seems clear from it that the relationship between Pomona College and PPLA is cozy. Pomona College has solicited donations for PPLA through its staff and faculty, advertised its internships to students, and encouraged its graduates to work for PPLA.

On March 2, Dean of Women, Marcelle Holmes, wrote a letter to David and Kyle banning them from the campus until after they graduated:

"Use and enjoyment of Pomona College's private campus facilities is a privilege, not a right…This letter will serve as notice that, from this day forward, you are banned from the entire Pomona campus…As such, you are not authorized to visit Pomona, use any of the campus facilities or identify yourself as having any association with Pomona."

If found at Pomona College, Holmes threatened that there would be additional disciplinary action forthcoming and that Pomona College would call the Claremont Police Department on David and Kyle if they ever ventured onto Pomona's campus. Dean Holmes demanded that David and Kyle "surrender" all video tapes and images immediately to her. In Kafkaesque language, Dean Holmes even suggested that the boys harassed the participants and "chill the free exchange of ideas" on Pomona's campus. This is an especially glaring double standard: Pomona students shouted down a speaker from the Minuteman Project and the Queer Resource Center disrupted lunches in the wake of Proposition 209, to name two examples.

One of CMC's Assistant Dean of Students, David 'Fid' Castro, provided his Pomona counterparts Marcelle Holmes and Miriam Feldblum, with mug shots of the two boys to distribute on campus - as if they were outlaws, wanted dead or alive.That Kyle Kinneberg is his class's valedictorian and recipient of the prize for best senior thesis in Mathematics made CMC's initial reaction situation all the more troubling.

David and Kyle, after consulting an attorney, refused to comply with Dean Holmes' demands to hand over the video and appealed the decision to ban them. A Facebook group, started by Claremont Independent alumni Adam D'Luzansky CMC '08 and Kevin Vance CMC '08, swelled to over 600 members, including Professor John J. Pitney. Dozens of alums soon wrote in to voice concern about how Pomona and Claremont McKenna had handled the situation.

Although David and Kyle had not initially planned to release the video, they decided to do so after Dean Feldblum claimed in an email to members of the Women's Forum that the two activists were rude and disruptive. To clear their names, they felt as if they had no choice. The Claremont Conservative, a student-run blog, was the first to break the story. The blog also provided coverage of the incident as it unfolded and hosted the video that proved Dean Feldblum wrong.

In their email to the Women's Union, Holmes and Feldblum wrote, "When we hear that someone has failed to respect one of the central values of the Women's Union by recording a conversation in this way, and/or continuing to record when repeatedly told to stop, we feel compelled to respond." However, the video clearly shows that David asked repeatedly if Josel wanted him to leave, and even offered to leave if asked. However, in the video, Josel did not ask the boys to stop, but merely threatened David with phantasmic legal repercussions. Nor did Holmes or Feldblum seem to want to get to the bottom of those accusations. They simply listened to the rumors and rushed to judgment.

Page 127 of Pomona's student handbook, which states that in determining charges of discrimination or harassment "the context must be carefully reviewed and full consideration must be given for the protection of individual rights, freedom of speech, and academic freedom." The rules were clear, but Dean Marcelle Holmes never contacted David and Kyle until she summarily banned them from Pomona. Indeed, Pomona's student handbook says that students have a right to hear the charges against and to file an appeal, both of which were denied.

Due to intense pressure from concerned alumni and faculty, the ban was repealed after a week. On March 9, President Pamela Gann wrote an open apology to students, faculty, and staff at CMC, which she also sent to CMC's Board of Trustees and the presidents of the 7Cs. In her email, she offered her apologies for the fiasco and informed the boys that they had been unbanned from Pomona. She said that the ban was "inappropriate in the first instance" and vowed to discuss the matter with Pomona President David Oxtoby and the other 5C college presidents. Pomona's deans were nowhere near as forthcoming. As of this writing, they still do not concede any wrongdoing in their abdication of due process. More troubling still is that Dean Feldblum defended the ban a day after it was lifted. In an email to Pomona students, she claimed that CMC both supported the ban on Kyle, "the cameraman," and even recommended that David be banned as well! To date, no one at CMC has responded to requests for more information. Earlier, she had proposed a forum to discuss abortion, but changed the topic to freedom of speech after two days.

Neither forum has taken place. The deans at Pomona remain as unapologetic as ever. No matter what happens now, the ban was lifted-but Dean Feldblum has since claimed in The Student Life's blog that she still has the sole authority to ban people. Although the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE) still gives CMC a "red light" rating for free speech, the vast majority of the college, including those who disagreed with David and Kyle, united to stick it to the Woman in the name of free speech.

Charles Johnson CMC '11 is editor of the Claremont Independent. George Posner CMC '12 is layout editor and webmaster of the Claremont Independent.