Tufts University Urges Students to End Pro-Palestinian Encampment so Semester Can Start

Pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel protesters face off in front of the entrance of Columbia University in New York City, on April 22, 2024. Charly Triballeau/AFP via Getty Images

A Massachusetts university is urging its students to end a pro-Palestinian encampment protest “peacefully and voluntarily” so the school can prepare for the start of the upcoming semester.

Tufts University students erected a “Gaza Solidarity Encampment” protest on April 7 in the academic quad and have occupied the area since. Protesters are demanding that the school end its association with any business that has ties to Israel and issue a statement condemning the war in Gaza.

According to an April 28 open letter from Tufts University leaders, including university president Sunil Kumar, the school is now asking the protesters to cease their activities and allow normal university life to return in time for the start of the semester.

In the letter, they claim the university has tried to be accommodating and respects “our community members’ right to advocate for their beliefs.”

“But now the encampment must end, ideally peacefully and voluntarily, so we can prepare the campus for Commencement,” the letter states.

“Student Life staff will be reaching out to the protesters tomorrow morning to plan for the end of the encampment in the next few days.”

Pro-Palestine Group Not Backing Down

Shortly after the open letter was published, one of the protesting groups, Tufts Students for Justice for Palestine, posted an image to Instagram, reaffirming their demands. Specifically, the university must cut ties with all Israel-affiliated businesses, including selling Sabra and other Israeli products at Tufts dining locations, and issue a statement apologizing for previous statements.

The demands were posted with a caption saying, “Heed our resolutions. We will not leave until our demands are met.”

According to Tufts University leaders, since the protests on campus began in October, Student Life staff have tried to keep open lines of communication with the protesters and “keep the campus operating and to keep the entire community safe.”

“But recent exchanges have been markedly different as the protesters have sought to escalate and disrupt normal university activity. Exchanges with Student Life staff are often now followed by false claims of threats and intimidation on the protesters’ social media accounts,” they said in their open letter.

“Let us be perfectly clear: these claims are simply inaccurate and can only be seen as an attempt to further inflame the community by deliberately misrepresenting the situation.”

The university says the protesters’ actions increasingly come at the expense of their fellow students’ rights. Following a demonstration last Friday, student organizers requested a meeting with the university’s leadership.

“Their request, which includes a threat to continue disruption, only comes after they have escalated their actions, caused intentional and malicious harm to our community and campus, broken multiple university policies, and, most importantly, violated the values and norms of the institution,” the university leaders said.

“As we have said before, we are deeply troubled by the tremendous loss of Palestinian life, and we desire to work with all members of our community to support both the Palestinian and the Israeli people.”

Protests Sweeping University Campuses Nationwide

Protests have swept across college campuses in the United States and around the world since Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas attacked Israel in a bloody massacre and Israel responded with a military campaign to neutralize Hamas’ capabilities in Gaza.

The Hamas terrorist attack killed about 1,200 people in Israel, most of them civilians. According to the Hamas-run Health Ministry in Gaza, about 34,000 Gazans have been killed since the fighting began. The ministry does not distinguish between combatants and noncombatants in its death counts, but international criticism has mounted given the high death toll in Gaza.

Pro-Palestinian protests have recently led to crackdowns at Yale University in New Haven, Harvard, Connecticut, and New York University.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the ongoing protests “horrific” and compared them to the early days of Nazi influence in German universities in the 1930s.

In an April 24 post on social media platform X, the prime minister said that the violence against Jewish people needs to end immediately.

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. weighed in on the issue, telling the media after a campaign rally in New York City on Sunday that he agrees with and supports the right to protest but disagrees with the calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

“First of all, you know, I support free speech. I think speech, even when speech is appalling to me, when it’s reprehensible, when it makes no sense, people ought to be able to say, ought to be able to voice their concerns,” he said.

“I don’t see how people want to have a negotiation. Every ceasefire has been used by Hamas to rearm, to regroup, to raise the banner and do another surprise attack on Israel.”

Mr. Kennedy also called anti-Semitic threats against Jewish students on campuses “unacceptable” and urged universities to protect all students, as they often have for others in the past.

“If they’re going to protect people who are non-white from abuse because it makes them feel unsafe, they need to do that with Jewish students, too,” he said.