Hundreds of Tufts University students threaten to boycott commencement amid pro-Palestinian protests
More than 250 Tufts University students are threatening to boycott the school’s upcoming commencement on May 19 amid pro-Palestinian protests on the Medford campus and across the nation.
In an open letter addressed to Tufts President Sunil Kumar, more than 250 members of the graduating class have pledged to boycott commencement if the university employs “police violence,” sweeps the encampment or arrests students.
“Let us be perfectly clear: we believe that ending the University’s complicity in slaughter and famine in Gaza is far more important than holding a ‘normal’ commencement ceremony. As members of the Tufts community, we strongly urge you to meet the encampment’s demand for University leadership to engage in dialogue with the student protesters about the University’s financial complicity in the ongoing devastation of Gaza,” the letter states.
“If the University turns to police violence rather than engaging with its own students, we pledge to boycott the commencement ceremony in solidarity with our peers currently protesting on the Academic Quad and the people of Gaza,” the letter states.
The letter to Kumar came amid violent clashes during protests over the Israel-Hamas war seen at colleges and universities across the country, and reports of antisemitic activity on college campuses across America.
House Republicans on Tuesday launched an investigation into federal funding for universities amid the campus protests and reports of growing antisemitism on college and university campuses, The Associated Press reported.
“We will not allow antisemitism to thrive on campus, and we will hold these universities accountable for their failure to protect Jewish students on campus,” House Speaker Mike Johnson said at a news conference.
Tufts University students are among campus protesters across the country who are calling for their schools to cut financial ties to Israel.
“We support the call, passed by the Tufts Community Union Senate on March 4, for transparency in the University’s investments and products sold on campus, and for the University to divest from companies which are funding and profiting off the mass killing of Palestinian civilians,” the students’ open letter to Kumar states.
Tuesday night, violence erupted at UCLA in Los Angeles, hours after police forced their way into Hamilton Hall on New York’s Columbia University campus and cleared the building that had been taken over by a pro-Palestinian group.
Over the weekend, at Northeastern University in Boston, more than 100 protesters were arrested for an illegal encampment on the campus, and Northeastern University’s Chancellor later wrote a letter to the community explaining why these actions were taken.
Last week, at Emerson College in Boston, more than 100 people were arrested and four officers were injured after police clashed with protesters and tore down an encampment protesting the Israel-Hamas war on Emerson’s campus.
“We have watched with shock and horror the past several weeks as university administrators throughout the country (including just across the river at Emerson College and Northeastern University) have unleashed violent police riots to quash undergraduate protests,” Tufts students said in their letter to the university’s president. “If the Tufts administration were to unleash this violence against our peers currently occupying the Academic Quad, it would mar our experience of commencement far more than chalked slogans and a keffiyeh on an elephant statue ever could.”
Students in their letter to Kumar wrote, “We were shocked and deeply concerned by your email sent Sunday evening using the approaching commencement ceremony as a pretext for implied violence against the students currently protesting on the Academic Quad.”
“We wish to be resoundingly clear: any commencement ‘celebration’ built on violently sweeping, arresting, or otherwise harassing the Gaza solidarity encampment is not a celebration in which we would partake,” the letter states.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates as more information becomes available.
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