Emerson College’s Board of Trustees backed President Jay Bernhardt, despite calls to resign from the school’s student government association following the arrest of more than 100 individuals who had occupied a campus alleyway last week.

“At a time when freedom of speech and higher education itself are besieged by outside forces, the Emerson College Board of Trustees encourages our community to come together,” the statement reads. “The differences we may have today within Emerson are shades of a shared vision for civil dialogue, peaceful protest, and respect for human diversity. We chose Jay Bernhardt as a transformational leader who could bring us together in difficult times. The board remains confident in President Bernhardt’s leadership and unequivocally supports his presidency.”

The board’s statement followed criticism over Bernhardt’s handling of the arrests of 108 people during a pro-Palestinian encampment last week.

Bernhardt, on Sunday, called for prosecutors to drop charges against the arrested students. In a statement to the college community, he said,  “The College will not bring any campus disciplinary charges against the protestors and will encourage the district attorney not to pursue charges related to encampment violations.”

The Emerson’s student government association voted no confidence in Bernhardt on Friday, according to a resolution reportedly introduced by Angus Abercrombie, a member of the Student Experience Senate.

The Berkeley Beacon, Emerson’s student newspaper, reported on the vote that featured strong opinions from the school community.

“This is not something we did because we were simply in an emotional place,” Abercrombie said, according to the Beacon. “This is something that we entered into after weeks of thinking about our response, months of thinking about what our response should be.”

The resolution claimed a recent email from the president “failed to acknowledge the violence administered by Boston Police and Massachusetts State Police against the protestors and failed to adequately acknowledge the damage these events have caused to the arrested students as well as the Emerson community.”

Police were seen on camera warning the protestors who were pitching tents in the public way early Thursday morning.  The arrests, live-streamed on social media platforms, also showed police moving in on the crowd taking up space in an alley leading to the state Transportation Building.

Boston Police received support from their state counterparts, with four officer injuries reported, three of which were classified as “minor” to the Herald. Students, however, reported “open wounds” among the injuries sustained during the arrests.

Boston Mayor Michelle Wu said she directed police to take down the encampment for public safety reasons, had been working closely with Emerson school officials and Boston Police Commissioner Michael Cox for several days before deciding to proceed with the removal.

“The commissioner and I jointly agreed that the growing encampment needed to be removed in order to address the public safety and fire hazards that it presented,” Wu said in a statement.