JBoard freezes SJP’s funding ahead of Palestine Liberation Week

On March 23, Pomona College’s Judicial Board froze all of Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP)’s funding, exactly two weeks before the beginning of SJP’s annual Palestine Liberation Week (PLW). The freeze is a sanction in response to SJP’s failure to meet certain details of their original November 2024 sanctions.

PLW, a weeklong series of speakers, workshops and other events, is still scheduled to happen from April 7-11 despite the freeze. 

Last year’s PLW, held from March 17-30, ended with Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) setting up a mock apartheid wall and encampment on the steps of Pomona’s Smith Campus Center on March 28. More than a week later, on April 5, Pomona administrators attempted to tear down the wall, which led students to stage a peaceful sit-in inside Pomona President Gabi Starr’s office in Alexander Hall. In response, Pomona College called in over 25 police vehicles to arrest the 19 students participating in the sit-in.

This year’s PLW comes in the wake of the Zionist entity formally resuming its bombing and ground invasion of Gaza on March 18, though Palestinian UN representatives said that the Zionist entity violated the Jan. 19 ceasefire at least 962 times in the span of 42 days.

An SJP member described the timing of the funding freeze as directly targeted towards PLW, which has been a major annual event for SJP for at least five years. PLW historically uses a majority of SJP’s allotted budget, the entirety of which comes from ASPC. 

“The main point of this is that we’re in the midst of planning PLW and that has historically been where the vast majority of our funding goes,” they said. “[PLW] is to bring Palestinian speakers to the Claremont Colleges, and the point is not only to amplify Palestinian voices but also to mobilize our community to join [the fight] for Palestinian liberation, and also to continue educating ourselves so that we can organize more strongly.” 

The new sanction comes after Jboard originally charged SJP with six policy violations and issued the club seven sanctions, on Nov. 2, in response to their alleged involvement in a divestment protest on Oct. 7, 2024. 

The original sanctions included a probation of SJP’s Instagram account until March 31, which the club was able to shorten to Feb. 1 after appealing, a six page reflection on the judicial process, a plan for community apology, a document defining the club’s relationship to PDfA and a statement of proposed event promotion strategies and media management. 

On Feb. 3, two days after SJP was supposed to have access to their Instagram account, JBoard sent an email to the club entitled “Update on the State of your Sanctions,” notifying them that several of their sanctions were incomplete. 

Namely, that SJP had given no record of their two required meetings with their faculty advisor, had submitted their statement to Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA) several weeks late, and had not added a closing signature on the statement or the plan for community apology.

“I mean, honestly, we were just students being students and like there were some technical errors in our ability to submit the sanctions,” an SJP member said.

JBoard alleged that the club’s failure to complete their earlier sanctions correctly and on time constituted a violation of the third article of the Pomona College Student Code, “Failure to comply with reasonable requests made by college officials, including providing false information or failing to produce identification upon request.” 

As a result, JBoard sanctioned SJP again, freezing their funding and extending their Instagram ban until its original end date of March 31. 

“They’re just trapping us in this place where either we give them information about us so that they can kind of codify SJP in our organizing, or they continue to sanction us and essentially try to immobilize us,” the SJP member said, “which is not gonna happen.” 

The member emphasized SJP’s determination to continue organizing despite obstacles from administration.

“We know that we’re gonna continue to be met with that kind of repression from them,” they said. “But in terms of precedent for us, I think it just means that we know we have to continue to be showing up in full force, and as a unified front with students from different orgs across campus who are committed to Palestinian liberation.”

This year, PLW is set to continue as planned, despite the funding freeze. The series of workshops, talks and performances also corresponds with the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement’s annual Israeli Apartheid Week, a global call to mobilize against Zionist settler colonialism.

The SJP member emphasized the club’s central focus on Palestinian liberation and divestment from the Zionist entity, regardless of any administrative repression. 

“Our focus is what’s happening on the ground and how we can work towards divestment,” they said. “This repression [from Pomona] is bullshit and is worthy of concern, but it shouldn’t be our main focus, because we have to stay principled and steadfast in our commitment to divestment, which is our goal and will always be our goal.”