Better Late Than Never Department: Free Speech at Pomona College

The Pomona Students Union attempted to sponsor a debate last Thursday (November 8) between representatives of the Pro-and Anti-Immigration factions. A group of protesting students apparently shut down the event before listeners could engage the speakers with questions. We have been looking for a concerned letter to The Community from Pomona College president David Oxtoby, but must have missed it.

This fracas was covered by the Daily Bulletin (the link might go down soon), the College OTR blog (crude language alert: be warned), and KCAL 9 with a video.

By the way, we might have posted this earlier but we have been caught in an endless mind loop trying to parse this quote, which appeared in the Bulletin article:

"I think the debaters could have used this opportunity to express their ideas instead of using the platform as a soap box," said Kelly Natoli, a Pomona College [student]. "I don't think learning should be threatening."Maybe Kelly knows what that means; we don't.