A group of at least 11 students plans to sue the University of New Hampshire and Gov. Chris Sununu for violating their civil rights during a May 1 pro-Palestine protest in which 11 students were arrested.

An intent-to-sue letter is set to be sent Friday to UNH, the Office of the Governor, and seven other state and local agencies, according to Adeena Ahsan, a UNH graduate student and a member of the Palestine Solidarity Coalition, which has organized the anticipated litigation.

“The lawsuit would mainly be about our civil liberties, but also the assaults against some of the students by police officers,” said Ahsan, who was present at the May 1 protest, but was not arrested.

Protesters have described the police response, which involved both university and state police, as an extreme overreaction to a peaceful protest. They have also criticized the involvement of UNH Police Chief Paul Dean, who ran into a group of protesters while in plain clothes after spotting one holding part of a tent.

Emails obtained via a public records request and a timeline released by the university show that Sununu was directly involved with the police response and was responsible for ordering state police to UNH’s campus.

A UNH spokesperson said she had not heard about a potential lawsuit and declined to comment. A spokesperson for Sununu did not respond to a request for comment.

The UNH police department, State Police, Office of the Attorney General, town of Durham, Durham Police Department, Stratford County Sheriff and Stratford County Department of Corrections will also be named in the lawsuit as defendants, Ahsan said.

The letter the students plan to send to the nine agencies and offices will put them on notice of pending litigation and require they preserve relevant documents. Ahsan declined to say exactly when the group plans to file the lawsuit, but confirmed they have decided to go forward.

The pending litigation comes as prosecutors in both Durham and Hanover have started to offer plea deals to and drop charges against some of the 100 protesters arrested during concurrent May 1 pro-Palestine protests at UNH and Dartmouth College. The vast majority of arrests occurred at Dartmouth – 89 in all – compared to 11 at UNH.

Marie Collins, a UNH PhD student, adjunct professor, and one of the people arrested outside UNH’s Thompson Hall on May 1, said a prosecutor contacted her Wednesday with an offer to drop her disorderly conduct and trespassing charges in exchange for 40 hours of community service.

Collins was notified of the deal only after reaching out to the prosecutor, UNH Police Captain Francis Weeks, herself. Weeks told Collins that the same offer was available to all of the other people arrested who had received the same charges, but Collins said none of them had heard from the prosecutor or anyone else at UNH since their arrests.

“The lack of communication has been really jarring,” said Collins, who also plans to join the lawsuit.

Weeks did not respond to a request for comment.

At Dartmouth this week, prosecutors dropped charges against 28 people who were arrested on the college’s green on May 1, and reduced charges against 35 more. Twenty-four others have not had their charges altered.

Hanover Police Prosecutor Mariana Pastore declined to comment on why charges against some of the protesters, but not others, had been dropped or reduced.

The charges that were reduced were changed from misdemeanors to violations. A “violation” indicates that an action is illegal, but not criminal, and does not carry jail time or result in a criminal record. Fines and court fees, however, may be imposed.

Among the 28 people whose charges were completely dropped were Dartmouth Professor of Religion Christopher MacEavitt, several Dartmouth undergraduates, and a number of community members not affiliated with the college. History professor Annelise Orleck, whose arrest video went viral, had not been notified of any change to her charges as of Thursday afternoon, she wrote in an email.

Valley News reporter Chris Dolan contributed reporting.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.