Monthly Archives: October 2009

End Violence, Stop Hate: Wave of Hate Incidents Hits Campus

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Annie Oxborough-Yankus – Pitzer ‘12

Hailey Hartford – Scripps ‘12

Alvin Sangsuwangul – Pomona ‘10

Rosa Greenberg – Pomona ‘12

 

V Day, a campus group that advocates for the end of violence against women, posted life-size paper silhouettes that bore statis­tics on domestic violence around the 5C’s last Sunday night. By 9:30 the next morn­ing, one of these outlines hanging outside of the south entrance of Frary Dining Hall had been vandalized with the words, “FUCK BITCHES GET MONEY.” On Wednesday night, two days later, a second silhouette was found with its arms taped together behind its body bound to the railing across from Frary’s south entrance. One of these acts is disturbing in and of itself, but this pattern of incidents seems to show clear intent. The second one is particularly visceral in that it attempts to recreate the violence that the campaign was speaking out against by turn­ing the witness into a victim. The flyers at­tached to the silhouettes contained statistics that 7.8 million women have been raped by an intimate partner at some point in their lifei and that 113 people died due to domes­tic violence in California in 2008.ii

 

These are large numbers and it’s hard to conceptualize that each number represents the life and death of a person. Recently in the news, a 15-year-old girl was gang-raped outside of her high-school homecoming dance, in Richmond, CA. As many as 10 individuals were involved, while 10 others witnessed the two-and-a-half hour-long as­sault without calling police. Fortunately, she survived and is currently in stable condi­tion.iii While this story is receiving public­ity, there are many other stories that we will never hear. According to the National Crime Victimization Survey, which includes projec­tions of crimes that were not reported to the police, 232,960 women in the U.S. were raped or sexually assaulted in 2006. This amounts to over 600 women every day.iv Ac­cording to the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, women experience 4.8 million intimate partner-related physical assaults and rapes every year.v

 

This wave of violence directed at women is not a recent phenomenon. Despite the comprehensive data confirming this pattern of violence against women, the issue rarely comes up in the news media or in public and political discourse. This violence is viewed as unfortunate but unavoidable and thus goes unaddressed: these crimes are seen as scat­tered incidents rather than the consequences of a social trend.

 

The incidents at Frary in some ways sup­port this trend. It may be tempting to think about this as a joke played by the harmless intoxicated, but is it really more comfort­ing? It seems disconcerting that there are students on this campus that do not con­sider rape, domestic abuse, and the murder of women as serious issues that also affect our community. Samantha Jones, one of the co-facilitators of the Women’s Union at Po­mona, says, “This vandalism is a slap in the face to anyone who has ever been affected by domestic violence which—despite the fallacy that nothing of this sort could have happened to any one on campus—most cer­tainly includes members of our community.”

 

If you have not already been personally affected by these issues it may be difficult to know how to be active in this struggle. One way to begin is to think about femi­nism as a way of engaging with these issues and connecting them to your everyday life. Though we have focused largely on violence against women there are other far-reaching implications of gender norms that feminism addresses. As you sit down to eat dinner in at any of the dining halls on campus one out of every five women around you likely struggles with an eating disorder.vi The un­realistic representations of the female body in the media contribute to a culture that en­courages this destructive behavior. As grad­uation approaches, we are faced with the re­ality that gender and sexual orientation will affect the salaries we receive. Women and gay men can expect to earn 77-78 cents on the dollar that a straight man earns in a com­parable position.vii Even among friends both men and women experience pressure to as­pire to masculine and feminine ideals, which limits people’s abilities to authentically relate to one another. Feminism works to combat these issues by showing how they are inter­related and dependent on a society that rein­forces gender norms and hierarchies. Thus, by taking a stand against daily manifestations of gender inequality we are working to end ideologies that normalize violence against women.

 

Since feminism works for a more just so­ciety for all members, why does it elicit such strong negative reactions? Merriam-Webster Dictionary provides the following definition for feminism:

 

1: the theory of the political, economic, and social equality of the sexes

2: organized activity on behalf of women’s rights and interests.

 

In contrast, Urban Dictionary offers a different definition. Though Urban Diction­ary is notorious for its uncensored and often offensive definitions, these views are often reflective of widely held beliefs. Here are a few Urban Dictionary definitions of femi­nism:

 

• “Feminism is a federally funded, politi­cally correct, special interest hate group.”

• “Now it is equal to Nazism in its zeal­ous pursuit to destroy all that is manly.”

• “A movement to promote women’s in­terests at the expense of men.”

 

To see how pervasive these negative at­titudes toward feminism are, we sought the views of Claremont College students. The first question we asked was, “What first comes to mind when you hear the word feminism?” Here are some of the responses that we received:

 

“Empowerment.”

“Angry women. The first thing that comes to my mind is a picture of a meet­ing room with a lot of women being angry about men.”

“It is not worth the time and effort that feminists put into putting down men”

“Women’s rights for equality.”

“The first two things that come to mind are extremism and radicalism only because society and history has shaped it that way.”

“The first thing that comes to mind when I think of feminism is a liberal mindset bent on putting down men for no reason to fur­ther progress an already progressed sex.”

“Striving for equal treatment.”

“Scripps, and women that don’t need or have any time for men. ‘Independent wom­en’ in the words of Destiny’s Child.”

 

The second question we posed was, “What is a feminist? How do you describe a feminist?”:

 

“Sexy or a lesbian.”

“Woman who believes in equality and sometimes in women’s superiority.”

“Women who wish to break free of in­herently sexist society and western patriar­chal paradigms through forms of self ex­pression ranging from physical appearance to literature and community organizing, or a male feminist who speaks out in support of women.”

“A feminist is a woman who only lives to give men a hard time about things that they’ve never done.”

“Someone who unnecessarily banters about female rights and equality.”

“I don’t think you can classify what a feminist is in a definition because there are so many different kinds of feminists out there. Somebody who wants to empower women and stand up for women’s rights.”

 

It is apparent that while some of these re­sponses reflect the Merriam-Webster defini­tion, many others reflect attitudes similar to those seen in Urban Dictionary. These char­acterizations of feminists as butch, lesbian, aggressive, and man-hating women, reflect the perception of feminism as an extremist form of “reverse sexism.” First, arguments that feminism “put[s] down men for no rea­son [except] to further progress an already progressed sex” ignore that while women are now regarded as equal before the law, ad­vances have not been experienced universal­ly. Women who are from lower classes and/or identify as transgender, queer, or part of a racially marginalized group continue to suffer from increased gender discrimination and violence. Second, arguments that femi­nism is only about women fail to recognize the ways in which it is beneficial for all gen­ders, including men. Masculine norms force men into rigid “macho” behavior of mascu­linity based in power and strength, limiting agency and opportunities for development outside of societal control. Feminism ad­dresses the ways that gender norms impact all of us, not only women.

 

Feminist activism can be personal or structured. There are a set of organizations that directly address issues of gender equal­ity and feminism on the 5Cs. However, you don’t have to be involved with a structured group to be working towards gender equal­ity. Feminism can be anything from a public awareness campaign to a conversation you have with a friend about gender. If you do want to get involved in a group on the 5Cs, here are a number of organizations that di­rectly address issues of gender equality and feminist activities. These include, but are not limited to:

 

Pitzer: Feminist Coalition, Meetings Mon­days 9pm, Grove House (owerby@students.pitzer.edu)

Scripps: The Feminist Majority (feministmajority@scrippscollege.edu)

Pomona:  WU—Women’s Union, Pomona Col­lege located on the 2nd floor of Walker and open 4-11PM Sunday through Thursday and 12AM – 7PM on Friday and Saturday, Lit­any for Survival Weekly Discussion Group, Thursdays 9pm in the WU (womensunion@pomona.edu)

Advocates for Survivors of Sexual As­sault, Email: advocates@pomona.edu Website: www.advocates.aspc.pomona.edu Voicemail Hotline: 909-607-1778

CMC: The Women’s Forum (contact through the Dean of Student’s Office at (909) 621-8114)

Harvey Mudd: PRISM—People Respect­ing Individual’s Sexuality at Mudd, Meeting Thursdays 5:30pm Mitchell PDR the Hoch (bonny.guang@gmail.com)

5C: V Day, Meetings Sundays 5pm at the Queer Resource Center on Pomona’s Cam­pus, (Vdayclaremont@gmail.com)

WOW—Women on Women, Meetings Thursdays 10pm the Queer Resource Center (womenonwomen.wow@gmail.com)

The Queer Resource Center, located in Walton Commons on Pomona’s campus and open 2 pm–9 pm Monday–Thursday, 2 pm–6 pm Friday, and 7 pm–9 pm (Study Hours)

 

i. Costs of Intimate Partner Violence Against Women in the United States. 2003. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Cen­ters for Injury Prevention and Control.

ii. California Department of Justice, Criminal Justice Statistics Center.

iii.http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/10/27/california.gang.rape.investigation/index.html

iv. Bureau of Justice Statistics (table 2, page 15), Criminal Victim­ization in the United States, 2006 Statistical Tables, http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/pub/pdf/cvus0601.pdf

v. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Understand­ing Intimate Partner Violence (PDF), http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/dvp/ipv_factsheet.pdf

vi. National Institute of Mental Health’s (NIMH) guide, Eating Disorders: Facts About Eating Disorders and the Search for Solutions.

vii. “Gay Men Face Discrimination, Pay Imbalance in Workplace,” New York Reuters, Oct 25, 2007. http://www.canada.com/victo­riatimescolonist/news/life/story.html?id=0f83cd5e-e92e-4a6e-b13b-2b39fb21e309

“The Gender Wage Gap: 2008”, Institute For Women’s Policy Re­search Fact Sheet, September 2009, www.iwpr.org/pdf/C350.pdf

Exposing Injustice: Women in California’s Prison System

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Denise Liriano – Pomona ‘12

Chrysanthe Oltmann – Pomona ‘12

 

In 1982, Deborah Peagler was in a rela­tionship with Oliver Wilson, a pimp who violently abused her and forced her into prostitution. After she discovered that he had molested her daughter, Deborah turned to her mother, who advised her to speak to two men in the neighborhood who might be able to scare him off.

 

The two men ended up killing Wilson, and subsequently Deborah was charged with murder. The California felony murder rule states that any person involved in the plan­ning of a killing will be charged with murder, regardless of whether they actually com­mitted the crime. Neither Deborah nor her mother intended Wilson’s death. Though the district attorney knew that he did not have enough evidence to pursue the death penalty (and there are internal memos to prove it), he told Deborah that he would seek it. With this misleading information, Deborah’s law­yer convinced her to plead guilty and she was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.

 

This may seem like an extreme case, but in actuality, this case is emblematic of what is wrong with the California criminal justice system. A 1995 study of women in the Cali­fornia prison system found that 71% had experienced ongoing physical abuse prior to the age of 18, and 62% reported ongoing physical abuse after the age of 18 (Bloom and Owen, “Profiling the Needs of Cali­fornia’s Female Prisoners”). Unfortunately, for women who were prosecuted before 1992, the courts did not consider their his­tories of past physical and emotional abuse. Only in 1992 did California pass a law that recognized the term ‘Battered Woman’s Syndrome’ and mandated that past abuse should be presented and considered for women who fit this definition. As a result, these women were more likely to receive six to eight years for involuntary manslaughter instead of steep sentences for murder.

 

However, this law did not address the needs of women who fit the definition of a battered woman but were incarcerated be­fore the law was passed. It took ten years of lobbying from various prison rights and domestic violence organizations before California became the first state to permit battered woman who killed their abusers to challenge their original conviction and intro­duce evidence of their past abuse in a retrial. Two years later, this law was expanded to al­low women forced by their abusers to com­mit a crime to also appeal for another trial. As a result, numerous women have been re­leased through the courts, but this process is still arduously slow and time-consuming, and many women who fit this definition are unable to present their case to the courts.

 

Though Deborah’s case is similar to those of many women in the California pris­on system, it is also unique in that it ended well. While Deborah, after twenty seven years in prison, was approved by the parole board on her first hearing and subsequently released, most women are rejected by the pa­role board numerous times before they ever get a parole date, only to be denied parole by the governor. Moreover, Deborah’s case was especially sympathetic because she was diagnosed with terminal lung cancer, which rallied support from those who believed that she should be able to spend her last days with her friends and family. Thus, her plight received a lot of media attention, pressuring local L.A. politicians and Governor Schwar­zenegger to support her cause to protect their reputations. Many of the women inside prisons have equally distressing stories of past abuse and injustice, but their cases don’t receive attention because they are so similar.

 

Instead of incarcerating violent criminals, the California prison system targets poor, disenfranchised women. Of all the women incarcerated in California, eighty percent are nonviolent drug offenders. These women often do not receive the appropriate drug treatment, which only makes their situations worse. This focus on punishment rather than rehabilitation ensures that these women continue to cycle in and out of the prison system. This year, over 1 billion dollars were cut from the California prison budget. Drug rehabilitation programs and education op­portunities are the first resources to go.

What is driving this distressing trend? The two organizations that operate to keep this system in place are the prison guards’ unions, the Victims’ Crime Bureau, and cor­porations that profit from the prison-indus­trial complex. Prison guards benefit from having more inmates in prison, and thus their union lobbies extensively for tougher sentencing laws. Additionally, the Victim’s Crime Bureau, founded to provide a sup­port network for people whose loved ones were murdered, and now operates to make life even harder for inmates. Recently, the or­ganization rallied in support of Proposition 9, passed late last year, to constitutionally expand the legal rights of victims. Although this seems to be a positive change, prison­ers in California may now have to wait up to fifteen years between parole hearings, as opposed to being guaranteed one every year. Along with these two organizations, there are multiple corporations that are financially invested in the construction of prisons, pro­viding food services, contracting prison la­bor, and providing surveillance technology. These corporations profit from the creation of new prisons and higher rates of incar­ceration.

 

In addition to the lobbying power of these interest groups, the California justice system has inherent contradictions that dis­advantage these women. For example, Cali­fornia is one of three states where the gover­nor has the final say over whether an inmate will be released from prison. The governor also appoints members to the Board of Pa­role Hearings, made up mostly of retired law enforcement officers. Only a handful of prisoners are given a parole date by the board, and out of those, ninety-five percent will be denied release by the governor. Ef­fectively, Governor Schwarzenegger is go­ing against the decisions made by a parole board that he specifically appointed, in order to appear tough on crime. If Schwarzeneg­ger disagrees with the board’s decisions so often, it seems that he should reconsider his appointments.

 

The criminal justice system is so complex and deeply embedded in our society that at times, creating change can seem hopeless. Despite obstacles, various organizations continue to fight for the rights of incarcer­ated women. One organization, the Action Committee for Women in Prison (ACWIP), is an L.A. based group that helped bring at­tention to Deborah Peagler’s case as well as secure the release of numerous other wom­en. This semester, we have created a Clare­mont Colleges chapter of ACWIP, which seeks to promote issues that affect women currently involved in the prison system. Our mission statement is as follows:

 

Advocate for the humane and compassion­ate treatment of all incarcerated women.

Collaborate with other organizations dedi­cated to reforming the criminal justice sys­tem.

Work for the release of individual women prisoners who pose no danger to society.

Inform and educate the public.

Promote a shift of focus from punishment to rehabilitation and restorative justice.

 

Some of our plans for the semester in­clude, but are not limited to: establishing a pen pal system between women at the Cla­remont Colleges and women inside, collect­ing Christmas gifts for inmates, pressuring our governor to release certain prisoners, bringing former inmates to the 5C’s to share their stories, and increasing overall aware­ness about issues of criminal justice. We also want to emphasize that this group is meant to be a collaborative, educational experi­ence—we would love to hear any of your ideas and suggestions! If you are interested in participating, please drop by our meetings on Tuesday nights at Pomona, 9:30pm in the SOCA lounge, in the basement of Clark V Dormitory.

“Pro-Trays” as a Case Study in Privilege

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Sam Gordon – Pomona ‘11

 

Reading Nick Hubbard’s “Trayless” ar­ticle in last Friday’s TSL, my initial reaction was to write a counter-argument debating him point-by-point, but doing that seemed unproductive.

 

I was struck not by his arguments, but rather by which arguments he chose to make and why. He frames the decision to go tray­less as a poor choice in several ways: as a burden to students, as an increase in work­load to dining hall staff, as a questionable way to promote sustainability, as an issue of the right to choose, and finally as “the right thing to do.” These arguments trivial­ized important issues such as sustainability and staff workloads while sensationalizing the almost undetectable inconvenience of not having trays. Rather than having a gen­uine concern for the important issues that he raises, his arguments were conceived as a way of maximizing convenience for students at the Claremont Colleges, who already live tremendously convenient lives.

 

As undergraduates at a college with im­mense resources, we have housekeeping ser­vices to keep our living spaces immaculate, dining services to provide us with 19 meals a week at six dining halls of our choosing, shelter and comfortable housing arrange­ments, and the opportunity to interact with brilliant peers, receptive professors, and caring staff. Granted, all of this comes at a great cost that can make life difficult for our families and for us. Yet in the four years we’re here, and forever afterward, we’re en­dowed with privilege in various forms that influence our opportunities, social class, and behaviors.

 

Rather than arguing with Hubbard, I want to deconstruct his arguments as a case study in how privilege functions, to gain some in­sight into how our lives as college students frames our experiences. I believe I can elab­orate on some of those influences, using the lens of Hubbard’s article, and supporting those examples of privilege in our lives with how privilege functions on a larger scale in American society.

 

One characteristic of how privilege func­tions is the assumption that its preferred state is the “default” state. In relation to the pro-trays argument, Hubbard refers to tray­lessness as a “significant burden.” In doing so, he uses a negative argument: rather than seeing trays as a convenience, he sees their absence as an inconvenience, suggesting that having trays is a “default” state that has been interrupted. This argument takes for granted all of the elements that create that default state: resources, time, and work. Instead of recognizing and appreciating the things that create our relatively fortunate default state of dining, this type of argument focuses on the choice of using trays as the minimum stan­dard of a good dining experience. Assuming a default implies deservedness on the part of students, suggesting that anything less than the best possible circumstance is unaccept­able, even though, without trays, our dining experience is still pretty spectacular.

 

Turning to a societal example, assump­tions of defaults are prevalent and highly problematic in racial discourse. We see this in the social identification of multiracial individuals: if a person has one white par­ent and one black parent, that person is re­ferred to as black, rather than “half-white, half-black.” White is the “default” state, and any alteration to that state is emphasized as other. The use of default language alerts us to the privileged position of whites in American society. Unpacking this social con­struction, we might agree that neither state should be the default state; neither black nor white deserves to be privileged. A second characteristic of how privilege functions is to conflate the “common good” with what privileged individuals want. I de­tect this when Hubbard writes, “the dining hall staff gets overworked because they’re walking around cleaning tables instead of washing trays by the dozen”. Hubbard sug­gests that by returning trays, we can both increase our personal convenience and do a good thing for the dining hall staff.

 

The problematic assumption behind this “common good” argument is that students have no responsibility to keep tables clean. It attempts to frame food waste as a symptom of traylessness, while neglecting the idea that people should leave a space in the same condition that they found it. The argument attempts to place dining hall staff’s working conditions at its crux, without regard to the role that students play.

 

Especially now that housekeeping staff have been withdrawn from dining hall duty and the kitchen staff has had to increase their responsibility, the idea that it’s their job to clean up our mess seems especially egregious. The argument takes a substantial issue, working conditions, and trivializes it, and by extension trivializes the dining hall staff, while exploiting them as a mechanism to support the relatively insignificant issue of trays, an issue primarily in the focus of those with relative privilege, students.

 

Finally, privilege creates tunnel vision. Leading privileged lives blinds us to many of the ways in which others don’t share that privilege, and more troublingly, how our privilege is enabled by exploitation of others. By suggesting that we should have a right to “choice” regarding tray use, the pro-trays argument glosses over the fact that we have the immense privilege of eating an unbelievable variety of nutritious, healthy, tasty food at every meal. To suggest that this isn’t enough, that people who already do so much to improve our lives must also cater to maximize our convenience, is a pro­found indication of the ways in which our privilege narrows our understanding of our lifestyles, behaviors, and relations to others. We see this in Hubbard’s sensationalizing of the issue: “Relentless introspection and en­lightened dialogue should rule the day.” The proclamation is grand and well said, but the issue of trays is in no way worthy of such critical scrutiny.

 

Looking beyond college life for an exam­ple of tunnel vision, we might look to our food system, which allows us to eat whatev­er we please whenever we please, below the cost of its social and environmental impact. For instance, our food is often harvested by undocumented people working in chemi­cal-ridden fields, earning income based on their daily productivity, often receiving less than minimum wage. Cheap food commod­ity prices, from which American consumers benefit, create barriers to small-scale agri­culture elsewhere, forcing farmers into debt and threatening their traditional livelihoods. Yet the out-of-sight out-of-mind attitude of privilege overlooks these harsh realities.

 

Just as privilege plays out in larger dis­courses about race, politics, economics, and virtually any category with hierarchical im­plications, privilege plays out in our lives as college students. In illustrating the ways in which privilege stealthily frames our world­view, I hope to encourage readers to rec­ognize the ways in which we’re privileged simply by attending the Claremont Colleges. I wish to convey that privilege is as intellec­tually disabling as it is materially enabling. Through a healthy self-critique of the ways in which each of us is privileged, we can bet­ter understand our position in the world and engage more thoughtfully with the greater community.

Health Care for All, Even Students

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Quinn Lester – Pomona ’13

 

A quick glance at the news recently would show that healthcare reform is the biggest is­sue in the country. Our present system leaves millions uninsured, and millions more with inadequate coverage, destroys the financial security of many families, and leads to thou­sands of easily preventable and unnecessary deaths each year. As President Obama said in his speech to a joint session of Congress on September 9, “Our collective failure to meet this challenge — year after year, decade after decade — has led us to the breaking point.” The time for action is now.

 

The Obama administration has already addressed several groups directly – senior citizen groups, industry leaders, union lead­ers, etc. – and asked for their help in drafting healthcare reform. One group conspicuously absent from this list is the millions of young adults in the country, the same demographic that helped Obama into the White House. Any healthcare reform bill on the table right now promises to drastically impact their quality of healthcare throughout their lives.

 

According to the Lookout Mountain Group, a nonprofit set up specifically to in­vestigate how healthcare reform will affect students, there are an estimated 4 million uninsured students in this country. Conser­vatively, this estimate equals 25 to 30 percent of all students in four-year and graduate in­stitutions. By including two-year institutions an even higher number of students are left without health insurance.

 

Of those students at four-year or graduate institutions with insurance, 20 to 30 percent are severely underinsured. The problems for underinsured students include inadequate access to primary healthcare, access to men­tal health professionals, high deductibles that compete with already high student loan and credit card debt, and failure to meet the current standards of Medicaid. Of those students who currently have adequate insur­ance, many risk losing their coverage as they progress through college. A large portion of students are covered by their parents’ em­ployer-based plans, with any change in the status of the student or the parent’s employ­ment suddenly leaving the student with no coverage at all.

 

Students who are uninsured or underin­sured face many of the same problems that the general population faces with the current health insurance system. Students may put off treatment for their illnesses, not take the prescriptions necessary to treat their illness, or not seek preventative care, such as im­munizations and routine check-ups. Another dire problem is that many students may not seek mental healthcare. Often college mental health services are inadequate for addressing all students’ needs, instead referring students to outside institutions. Uninsured students do not have the luxury of going to these out­side services, and therefore forgo treatment. As several incidents within the past few years have shown, particularly the Virginia Tech shootings of 2007, access to mental health­care is crucial on campuses nationwide, and no student should be denied the treatment they need for a healthy life merely because they cannot afford insurance.

 

Aside from the risk to students’ physical and mental health, being uninsured can also pose a significant financial burden. Ironical­ly, many students are forced to pay medical bills when they cannot even afford insur­ance in the first place, and in the case of a catastrophic illness or accident paying the full cost can be debilitating. Students, forced to choose between paying their medical bills and paying their college tuition or loans, are often left with no alternative but to drop out of college.

 

While the specifics of the final plan for health care reform are unknown certain key features are becoming clear. It will be man­datory for all individuals to have health in­surance, with those who opt out paying a large fine every year. Health insurers will not be able to deny coverage based on pre-exist­ing conditions or abruptly cancel customer’s health plans. There will be some kind of government safety net for individuals not covered by employer health plans, Medic­aid, or Medicare. Whether the exact form of this government aid will be a public option, private co-op, or something else entirely is unclear at the moment.

 

However, universal mandates may not be the best option for students when it comes to acquiring health care. If health care re­forms fail to make insurance cheap enough for young adults, many may continue to opt out of health insurance. Yet with individual mandates in place, many young adults, stuck between not qualifying for government aid and not being able to afford private insur­ance, could find themselves with the added expense of a fine every year in addition to being uninsured.

 

Whatever the final form of health care reform is, it will most likely heavily rely on youth involvement to maintain it. Young adults rarely use health insurance to the de­gree that their parents and grandparents do, and, depending on the final plan, could end up shouldering a large part of the financial burden of health reform. There is also the concern that reform will not go far enough to give them adequate coverage. To avoid these two extremes, it is crucial that young adults make their voices heard in the health­care debate, to ensure that reform that gives everyone the best chance for good health and financial security is successful.

 

Recently, The Democrats of the Clare­mont Colleges canvassed door to door in order to drum up support for health care re­form. It was the most successful canvas in all of California that weekend. They would love to have more people come out and help. The Democrats of the Claremont Colleges meet every Tuesday at 10pm in Beckett Lounge at CMC. People seriously interested in working off-campus to organize for health care re­form should contact Maria Tucker at maria.tucker@pomona.edu for more information about events in the Claremont area.

 

Sources: Shailagh Murray, “Young Adults Likely to Pay Big Share of Reform’s Cost”, Sep­tember 16, 2009, The Washington Post.

Analysis and Policy Recommendations for Pro­viding Health Insurance and Healthcare Services for the College Student Population, Lookout Mountain Group, June 2, 2009.

Rally at Student-Trustee Retreat in Support of Staff

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An Open Letter to the Pomona College Community:

 

This past Sunday, members of Workers’ Support Committee went door-to-door across campus, talking to fellow students about the reduction of housekeeping staff and the resulting increase in workloads. This is an important situation, and one that demands immediate attention and resolution. However, rather than engage in arguments about the exact increase in work for everyone, we need to focus on one thing: power.

 

There is an enormous imbalance of power in our community. The prevailing order says that paying tuition or having an office here means you’re more important, and that everyone else’s perspectives don’t really matter. We’re having a Student-Trustee retreat on Friday. Why is there no Staff-Trustee Retreat?

 

The short answer is that students, not staff, are the College’s customers, so they have to keep us happy in order to keep the College’s reputation intact. Well, let’s show trustees that we’re not happy. We are fed a lot of rhetoric on campus about community, yet 1/3 of our oft repeated “students, faculty, and staff” mantra feel ignored and disrespected. Let’s do something about it!

 

The current housekeeping situation is yet another example of the College’s failure to effectively address staff concerns. In 1993, the President’s Task Force on Harassment at Pomona College found that “a very common complaint of both white and blue collar staff was the perceived ineffectiveness of grievance procedures at the College.” In 2006, the President’s Advisory Committee on Diversity found that “the present structure of grievance officers and our ‘Open Door’ policy is insufficient to address staff complaints about problems in the work place.” Over 13 years, the name of the committee changed, but the results did not.

 

In 2004, students wrote “A Call to Action” to document the views of marginalized groups on campus. Individual staff perspectives were collected as part of this report, some of which included:

 

• “Pomona is the first place that I have worked at that actually practices a caste system. Staff, for the most part, are not valued.”

• “I feel taken for granted. We are part of what makes this college what it is, yet our contributions are rarely publicly acknowledged.”

• “Staff members are made to feel less valuable than faculty, students and executive staff.”

• “I feel as if I have to be on guard and be sure that I document everything to protect myself.”

• “It has seemed to me, in the time I’ve been here, that the concerns of staff are rarely taken seriously. Therefore, I do not feel comfortable expressing my opinions to senior administration.”

• “I wouldn’t dare say a word. I work here.”

• “Believe me, the administration is well aware that there are problems but we are told that “Well, that’s just the way So and So is.”

• “I am so disappointed with the system here. The administration puts all the right things in print but does not follow through with its own policies.”

• “It’s generally accepted that if you want to advance your career or get a decent (read: living) wage, you either have to leave Pomona or threaten to leave.”

• “Staff concerns need to be taken more seriously and heard on a more regular basis.”

• “An open and honest assessment of staff advancement, wages, and benefits is long overdue.”

• “Include staff in discussions that eventuallywill result in policies or procedures where they are the primary implementers.”

 

This rally is not just about 13 fewer housekeepers, same amount of work. Our goal is not to win concessions from trustees and administrators or create another committee to investigate grievances. We can’t, shouldn’t, and won’t speak for workers. Instead, we aim to use student power to help create staff power.

 

This week, with this rally, we are taking the first step to create a new culture on campus in which staff can speak and be heard with power equal to that of students, faculty, and administrators. The people at Pomona, despite all else, will always be people. What we are working for is equality, humanity, and a recognition that every person on this campus is just as deserving as the next to make decisions and fully participate in our community.

 

Currently, students, faculty, and administrators have power, and staff do not. By publicly showing our support for staff, we can demand a change to this hierarchy and transform our community into one of which we can all be proud.

 

With hope,

Nick Gerber