Pomona College officials are investigating an outrage in which masked pro-Hamas activists breached an event held on the California campus to commemorate the victims of the Oct. 7, 2023, massacre in which Hamas-led Palestinian terrorists raped, murdered, and abducted women, children, and men during their rampage across southern Israel.

Footage of the act circulating on social media shows the group attempting to raid the room while screaming expletives and pro-Hamas dogma. They ultimately failed due to the prompt response of the Claremont Colleges Jewish chaplain and other attendees who formed a barrier in front of the door to repel them, a defense they mounted on their own as campus security personnel did nothing to stop the disturbance, according to video of the incident and witnesses who spoke to The Claremont Independent.

“We have seen videos of the incident, and they are shocking and deeply disturbing,” Pomona College president Gabi Starr said in a statement. “It is both outrageous and cruel to interrupt a space where members of our community come together to mourn. Antisemitic hate cannot be tolerated here. Our community is better than this.”

Issuing a call for assistance in identifying the culprits, she continued, “While we have not yet identified the individuals, we are examining video footage taken during the event, as well as security footage to determine how access could have been gained.”

Claremont Hillel, the center of Jewish student life at the Claremont Colleges consortium, of which Pomona College is a member, denounced the incident as “completely unacceptable,” adding, “Jewish students must be able to gather, grieve, and remember without fear or intimidation. We are grateful for Pomona College’s swift response and strong condemnation of this incident, and we are working closely with the administration to strengthen safety protocols and support our students in the wake of this upsetting incident.”

Pomona College has historically followed through on its promise to punish antisemitic activity.

In October 2024, it imposed severe disciplinary sanctions, ranging from expulsion to banishment, on 12 students who participated in illegally occupying and vandalizing the Carnegie Hall administrative building on the first anniversary of Hamas’s Oct. 7 massacre across southern Israel.

A Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) spinoff, Pomona Divest from Apartheid (PDfA), led the assault on the building, flooding Carnegie Hall to graffiti its walls — with messages such as “F—k Pomona” and “From the river to the sea” — and to wreck “AV equipment, printers, plaques, and various materials.” The students destroyed important college “memorabilia” too, a campus paper reported at the time.

“The destruction in Carnegie Hall was extensive, and the harm done to individuals and our mission was so great,” Starr said after the incident. “Starting this week, disciplinary letters are going out to students from Pomona and other Claremont Colleges who have been identified as taking part in the takeover of Carnegie Hall. Student groups affiliated with this incident are also under investigation.”

Pro-Hamas groups at other higher education institutions are facing even worse consequences for their behavior.

A Santa Clara County, California grand jury has indicted, on federal charges of vandalism and trespassing, nearly a dozen pro-Hamas students from Stanford University who commandeered then-school president Richard Saller’s office in June 2024.

As previously reported by The Algemeiner, anti-Israel activists associated with the campus group Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) raided Saller’s office, locking themselves inside using, the Stanford Daily said at the time, “bike locks, chains, ladders, and chairs.” The incident was part of a larger pro-Hamas demonstration in which SJP demanded that the university adopt the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) movement, which seeks to isolate Israel from the international community as the first step to its eventual elimination.

Twelve students in total had participated in the action, including one non-student, but the 12th student has reportedly become a “cooperating witness,” having agreed to tell on his friends in exchange for clemency. The remaining 11 are accused of causing some $300,00 in damages to Saller’s office and the administrative building in which it is located. As such, “Stanford is demanding restitution,” according to an email the group’s lawyer, Jeff Wozniak, sent to The Stanford Daily.

US college campuses saw an alarming spike in antisemitic incidents — including demonstrations calling for Israel’s destruction and the intimidation and harassment of Jewish students — after the Hamas terrorist group’s Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel. In a two-month span following the atrocities, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) recorded 470 antisemitic incidents on college campuses alone. During that same period, antisemitic incidents across the US skyrocketed by 323 percent compared to the prior year.

To this day, Jewish students report feeling unsafe on the campus. According to a new survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the World Union of Jewish Students (WUJS), the vast majority of Jewish students around the world resort to hiding their Jewishness and support for Israel on university campuses to avoid becoming victims of antisemitism.

A striking 78 percent of Jewish students have opted to “conceal” their religious affiliation “at least once” over the past year, the study found, with Jewish women being more likely than men to do so. Meanwhile, 81 percent of those surveyed hid their support for Zionism, a movement which promotes Jewish self-determination and the existence of the State of Israel, at least once over the past year.

Among all students, Orthodox Jews reported the highest rates of “different treatment,” with 41 percent saying that their peers employ alternative social norms in dealing with them.

“This survey exposes a devastating reality: Jewish students across the globe are being forced to hide fundamental aspects of their identity just to feel safe on campus,” ADL senior vice president of international affairs Marina Rosenberg said in a statement. “When over three-quarters of Jewish students feel they must conceal their religious and Zionist identity for their own safety, the situation is nothing short of dire. As the academic year begins, the data provides essential insights to guide university leadership in addressing this campus crisis head on.”

Follow Dion J. Pierre @DionJPierre.