If Tufts University calls on the police to break up a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus, students behind the movement say they’ll boycott commencement.

Roughly 320 undergraduate and graduate students set to receive their degrees later this month have sent a letter to university President Sunil Kumar urging Tufts to stay away from “police violence” and to “take action to end the War on Gaza.”

“If the University turns to police violence rather than engaging with its own students,” the letter states, “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, first reported by Boston 25 Wednesday morning, comes after Kumar called for an end to the encampment Sunday before he and other officials co-signed a letter Tuesday in which they threatened to issue trespass violations and bar seniors from commencement if the tents don’t come down.

Encampment organizer Tufts Students for Justice in Palestine, in an Instagram post Wednesday morning, stated that the administration has agreed to reopen negotiations and that Kumar is set to meet with students. It did not disclose when that meeting will take place.

In the letter signed by Kumar, officials highlighted that students declined to discuss proposals with the deans of the School of Arts and Sciences and the School of Engineering on Tuesday, and that they’d rather meet in person with the president, the chief investment officer and members of the board of trustees.

“The university agreed to such a meeting in writing on the condition that the encampment end first and that the protesters agree not to disrupt Commencement,” the letter states. “This offer, which remains on the table, was rejected, and the meeting ended without an agreement.”

Leadership wrote it’s looking to “avoid the confrontations seen at other universities,” such as Emerson and Northeastern locally, and Columbia, nationally.

“We will be issuing a no trespass order to the protesters,” the letter states. “Tufts students who do not vacate the space will be subject to the Community Standards processes which may result in suspension or other sanctions. For seniors, this may include not participating in senior week activities or Commencement. It is our strong desire that it does not come to this, and the protesters choose to leave voluntarily.”

More than a hundred pro-Palestinian protesters took their demands that Tufts divest from Israel and call for a ceasefire in Gaza to campus last Friday, vandalizing school property with explicit messages including “F*** the trustees.”

Some of the protesters at the encampment include “demonstrators unaffiliated with Tufts to bolster their numbers and expand their encampment,” leadership stated in its letter Tuesday. “The presence of these outside protesters on campus has raised safety concerns among many in the community.”

Students described feeling “shocked and deeply concerned” by Kumar’s letter Sunday about how the encampment had started to disrupt preparations for the commencement, set for May 19.

“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,” they wrote in their letter. “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.”

“If the Tufts administration were to unleash this violence against our peers currently occupying the Academic Quad,” the letter continues, “it would mar our experience of commencement far more than chalked slogans and a keffiyeh on an elephant statue ever could.”

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