SJP People’s University connects Palestine to ICE, policing, wildfires in LA

On Jan. 21, the first day of spring classes, Claremont Students for Justice in Palestine hosted a People’s University on the Pitzer Mounds, which included a teach-in about policing by Pitzer professor Arón Montenegro, and a Know Your Rights training by IE organization Chicane Indigenous Community for Culturally Conscious Advocacy & Action.

Pomona College banned SJP from using their Instagram after a November Judicial Council hearing, so they announced the event through a post on Pomona Divest from Apartheid’s Instagram account.

An SJP organizer said during the event that the goal of the People’s University was to gather “in solidarity with Gaza” and demand that the Claremont Colleges divest from genocide. They emphasized the interconnectedness of local and Palestinian struggles.

“The militarization on campuses, the inauguration of Trump, the prevalence of white supremacy in this country are all alerting us to the global trend towards fascism,” the organizer said. “The institutions have shown time and time again that they stand with genocide. They have tried to dismantle our ability to mobilize through censorship, punishments, and intimidation tactics. We must remain strong in our convictions and our principled solidarity.”

Arón Montenegro on local police violence

Pitzer Professor Arón Montenegro spoke about police violence and the necessity of community engagement and education outside the classroom to a gathering of over 30 students.

In fall 2023, Campus Safety officers called Claremont Police to arrest Montenegro, then a professor at Pomona College, after he played Palestinian music on a sidewalk near a divestment protest on campus.

“I may be a professor here, but I still have a target on my back,” Montenegro said. “You go on the other side of the freeway, you go to Pomona, you go to Montclair, you go anywhere, [police violence] is a lived reality for many of us.”

Montenegro also spoke about a recent police killing in the neighboring town of Upland. Upland Police fatally shot a man named Steven Espinoza on Jan. 12 after responding to a call made by his family, who described Espinoza as “on fentanyl…going through a psychotic episode,” according to a recording by the Upland Police Department that Montenegro played.

“I want to give a little honor to those who’ve been taken from us by the police … [Espinoza] was schizophrenic and in a paranoid state,” Montenegro said. “Knowing that, the cops still came and shot and killed him.”

Montenegro called for students to be engaged in organizing outside the classroom, mentioning the Claremont Student Worker Alliance and their recent campaign for Pitzer to rehire Adan Campos, a dining worker that McConnell management fired while his DACA status was renewing.

Montenegro ended by inviting students to read quotes from activists including Ricardo Flores Magón, Lucy Parsons and Marsha P. Johnson.

“Be constructive, build together, build community,” Montenegro told students. “Don’t lose sight of the world we live in, pop this bubble, the Claremont [Colleges], and fuck the police.”

Know Your Rights: organizing against police and immigration officers

Claremont SJP also hosted a Know Your Rights training with the Chicane Indigenous Community for Culturally Conscious Advocacy & Action, an organization based in the Inland Empire. 28 Claremont college students and community members attended the teach in.

The speaker began by citing specific cases of police violence in the Inland Empire, including the police murders of Ernie Serrano, Hugo Cachua and Tyisha Miller.

“Los Angeles gets toted as the police brutality capital of California, right? The truth is, when you look at the per capita information in the Inland Empire, we get killed at nearly double the rate of Los Angeles. We’re losing our community members faster,” they said.

The speaker emphasized that the Know Your Rights training was not a protection against experiencing state violence. Instead, the speaker hoped that the information could be used to organize against it.

“I don’t want to give you a false idea that knowing your rights is somehow gonna protect you from the cops. It’s not. But it will help you defend yourself and make sure that you can get legal advice to help protect you,” the speaker said.

Speakers from CHICCCAA handed out pamphlets containing information regarding people’s rights when encountering police and immigration officers, and free speech rights on college campuses.

One pamphlet included tips on how to identify and report cop presence accurately for other community members’ safety. This included noting their size/strength, activities, location, uniform, what time they were seen, and equipment (or the acronym SALUTE).

The speaker also talked about resources such as the ACLU app, which sends videos taken through it directly to lawyers if your phone is confiscated by the police; and the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, which provides trainings for undocumented people as well as advocates and lawyers.