Northeastern University, an Extension of Israel's Colonial Occupation of Palestine

As articulated by Palestine Action US, “It has been (211) days since the most recent and horrific chapter of the 75-year US-zionist genocide” against Palestinians. And on April 27th — by order of Northeastern — police in riot gear arrested over 100 anti-genocide protesters at their Palestine solidarity encampment on occupied Wampanoag and Massachusett land, otherwise known as Centennial Common.

Throughout the U.S. empire — in what has since been dubbed the student intifada — Northeastern University community members and campus neighbors joined the growing movement nationwide to establish encampments in solidarity with the resistance and struggle of the Palestinian people against Zionism, emphasizing Israel’s U.S. funded scholasticide in Gaza. This protest was accompanied by demands for Northeastern to divest from Israel’s escalating genocide and sever ties with Israeli companies enabling their colonial violence against Palestinians. Similar to other Palestine and Gaza solidarity encampments, protesters urging their universities to divest from genocide were subjected to police intimidation and brutality. Northeastern directly benefits from Israel’s occupation of Palestine and has continually chosen to prioritize its financial interests over the human lives of Palestinians and our Black and brown neighbors (which I will elaborate on below).

The state violence being enacted by universities nationwide — the weaponization of police brutality to protect their capital1 at the disproportionate expense of our most marginalized comrades — is a reflection of the exploitative, capital-hungry U.S. empire in which many of us are embedded.

I write this days after Columbia President Shafik called the NYPD on its anti-genocide protestors, who then proceeded to “violently (arrest) and (brutalize) dozens of student protestors, some with guns drawn, using sledgehammers, batons, and flash-bang explosives.” I write this days after the police used stun grenades and rubber bullets against anti-genocide protestors at UCLA. I write this days after President Boudreau ordered NYPD to raid CUNY’s Gaza Solidarity Encampment, a university of predominantly Black and brown students, resulting in “numerous injuries — including chemical burns, broken bones, concussions, bruises, and swelling” to protestors from the police.

It is no coincidence that the same police employed in this nation are being trained in Israeli settlements just outside of Gaza to learn — and repeat — the military tactics being used to terrorize and murder Palestinians. State violence carried out by the police — and the brutality inflicted by Zionist agitators against anti-genocide protesters — reflect the interconnected nature of all systemic oppression. The very design of this settler state cannot be viewed separately from the racist, colonial rhetoric that informs Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide against Palestinians in their homeland, or the racist, colonial rhetoric used to “justify” the brutality experienced by Black and Indigenous communities throughout the U.S. empire.

No matter how “peaceful” passive anti-genocide protestors are, they continue to be actively endangered by capital-hungry universities such as Northeastern. The reliance of university administrators on state violence further jeopardizes the safety of students, allies, and neighboring communities. Amidst anti-genocide efforts, it is protestors that protect each other from Islamophobic, racist, and antisemitic abuse as well as brutal physical violence from Zionist agitators and the police. For this reason — compounded with the respectability politics defined by White supremacist institutions and the fact that people are protesting a genocide — I have struggled with the language of “peaceful” protest. This framing undermines the violent oppression requiring our resistance (by any means) for the sake of our collective survival, especially as we engage in protest on stolen land.

This thread posted by Palestine Action US and Fatima Mohammed does a helpful job of juxtaposing the true threat of colonial and state violence, with the (circumstantially incomparable) reactive protection and resistance it demands both nationally and globally. As written by Muchacha Fanzine, protests against U.S.-funded genocides serving this empire’s financial interests “will always be deemed as ‘violent’ by the state so they can excuse their state-sanctioned violence enacted to protect capital and empire at all costs.”

In the U.S. empire — a settler colonial state dependent on the violent land theft of Indigenous communities, the ongoing execution of Indigenous peoples, the enslavement and exploitation of kidnapped Africans and their descendants, the construction and enforcement of a racial hierarchy that brutally oppresses people of color, and the maintenance of capitalism which prioritizes profit over the well-being of people and land — the structure of many of these Palestine solidarity encampments embodied an abolitionist vision of how we can tend to one another and be tended to, such as through the presence of art, shared food, dance, prayer, education, and accessible medical support. While this is proof of the possibility that we can live beyond the systems that oppress us all, so too are the practices of Indigenous communities that have shown us again and again that life beyond colonialism and extraction for profit has always been possible. This includes living regeneratively with the land, and denouncing the fetishization of these encampments that were intended to amplify Palestinian resistance and end the direct complicity of U.S institutions in Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. We must intentionally reject framings that center Western “student” mobilizations and saviorism in the movement for a free Palestine.

The fight for a free Palestine continues, led by the example of the Palestinian people who have been resisting an ongoing occupation of their land for over 75 years, including the Nakba, referring to the mass displacement, disposition, and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians by Zionists in 1948. 

The global struggle of all those resisting oppression, colonization, and White supremacy will never be halted by violent repression because love (which ultimately cannot be touched) carries it forward. The Palestinian people –  their steadfast commitment to their land and the revolution in their joy and determination – gives me hope. As we seek to build a future we can return to, it is love that actualizes liberation, and love sees no end. The land knows this just as we do. Zionist occupiers can desecrate fields of olive trees, but the soil remembers what not even a hand can touch. Palestinians are liberating themselves and true solidarity — its active embodiment — is what simultaneously frees us in the process.  

Colonial terror — the theft of one’s land, violence against that same land, the desctruction of one’s home, the genocide of family, friends, and neighbors, a calculated deprivation of food and water, an erasure of one’s culture, sexual violence, physical torture, and psychological warfare — can force many felt deaths upon those still living.

Resistance is the only option and Palestine will be free. 

The collective mobilization and radical reimagining that liberation requires works to dismantle the intertwined systems of oppression that seek to isolate and oppress us all.

Hypocritically, while Northeastern condemns the Palestine solidarity encampment as an “unauthorized occupation of university space,” Northeastern continues to fund Israel’s occupation of Palestine, including the “martyrdom of over 40,000 Palestinians (friends, families, neighbors, loved ones), the displacement of over 1.9 million Palestinians from Gaza alone, and a calculated “scholasticide” in which *all universities in Gaza have been destroyed. Failing to denounce Israel’s “unauthorized occupation” and their genocidal destruction of university spaces in Palestine, Northeastern has also “received millions of dollars in donations from Raytheon, the world’s largest producer of guided missiles & fifth-largest defense contractor” which manufactures weapons for Israel. “In return, Raytheon executives have been given seats in Northeastern’s highest governing bodies (Corporation & Board of Overseers). Their company receives a guaranteed source of labor (hundreds of students have done co-ops at Raytheon & they now employ almost 1,000 Northeastern alumni).”

Beyond empty land acknowledgments which become purely self-serving and performative when accompanied by inaction, Northeastern has similarly failed to honor the true autonomy of the Wampanoag and Massachusett people whose stolen land they reside on. This is demonstrated by their complete lack of commitment towards supporting the Wampanoag and the Massachusett people’s stewardship of their own land, which could otherwise be embodied through financial reparations, land return, and a continual effort towards amplifying the work of Indigenous community leaders to preserve their stories and cultures.

Northeastern benefits from an erasure of its own history, which includes an ongoing and rapid acceleration of gentrification, displacing Black residents from their homes. Roxbury in Massachusetts, described as “once a bastion of Black culture,” has been relentlessly subjected to this violence, resulting in the formation of many community organizations “battling the rapid gentrification of Roxbury” such as Reclaim Roxbury.

Northeastern continues to over-admit applicants they are unable to house. This results in an influx of their students moving into nearby neighborhoods, “creat(ing) a shortage of housing, causing rents to quickly rise beyond the means of local tenants.” For reference, Boston Magazine reports that “the median home price in Roxbury increased from $285,000 in 2006 to $476,250 in 2016 (67 percent)” while "the cumulative rate of inflation during that time was under 20 percent.” According to Redfin, as of 2024, the median sale price is now $750K. Northeastern is responsible for putting entire Black families and small businesses in jeopardy, persistently ignoring community calls for more on-campus housing.

In a related court case, Northeastern was sued by “a local minority-owned development firm named Columbia Plaza Associates (CPA),” who “alleged that Northeastern obtained the Roxbury Crossing parcel through an unlawful land grab.” CPA — which “encourages minority-driven development” — held the developmental rights for the stolen land Northeastern used to establish a multi-million dollar dorm, making “more than $300 million in profits from the development,” while the CPA only received $320,000. Although Northeastern won this lawsuit, their violent pattern of expansion is clear and thus far continual: Northeastern hoards occupied land at the expense of BIPOC community members.

The scope of their land grabs extends to Mills College — a historically women’s college in Oakland — which “was founded on a former Ohlone village site in 1852 after the Indigenous people who lived there were forcibly removed and enslaved” along with all the other schools in this area. Following an announcement of the closure of Mills, Oakland community members celebrated the possibility of this occupied land being returned to the Ohlone people. However, Northeastern proceeded to further their ongoing displacement of Indigenous communities and instead acquired this campus. 

Before Northeastern’s acquisition, Mills was reported to have been “64.9% BIPOC students.” Following Northeastern’s acquisition, the once “open campus” of Mills — supposedly an accessible2 green space for the people of Oakland — now requires ID for entrance and has been staffed with armed police. Northeastern militarizing this area is both 1) a direct threat to the safety and wellbeing of “their” students of color – many of whom have already experienced trauma from the police, and 2) severely at risk of increasing police brutality against the predominantly Black and brown neighborhoods of which campus is located.

Along with being a product of colonialism – like all higher education institutions established throughout the U.S. empire – the legacy of Mills is simultaneously informed by the rich history of social justice embedded within the background of the college. This is largely due to its location in Oakland where the Black Panther Party was founded, the history of student advocacy led predominately by the Black Student Union (since renamed the Black Student Collective), and the efforts of other BIPOC students attending the school.

Mills College, which positioned racial justice and gender equity as cornerstones of its mission, was the first women’s college to adopt an inclusive trangender policy for its student applicants. Mills was also one the first independent colleges in this country to have an ethnic studies department — not initially of the university's accord, but due to the advocacy of what was then the Black Student Union, along with their allies, which included the Black Panthers.

Northeastern’s inability to ensure that Mill’s focus on social justice and the humanities would be maintained post-acquisition resulted in the now renamed “Northeastern Oakland campus” only offering majors in Business, Technology, Healthcare, and Science. This is an example of academic colonization in which Mill’s legacy and resources have now been either exploited or eradicated to best serve Northeastern’s business ties and corporate orientation — including their affiliation with genocidal companies such as Raytheon.

Mills is among the 13 other colleges acquired by Northeastern as part of their mission to expand globally. When hearing from the Roxbury residents and Mills community members, it is undeniable that Northeastern violent expansion has been done without regard for the lives this affects — particularly the lives of already marginalized students — and the Black, brown, and Indigenous communities this displaces.

Northeastern is a product of colonialism. They perpetuate this legacy through ongoing land theft, including their acquisition of Mills, which disrupted an opportunity for land to be returned to the Ohlone people of the area. In addition to forcefully displacing Black residents from their neighborhoods such as Roxbury, Northeastern further militarizes areas predominantly populated by Black and brown people who are already particularly vulnerable to experiencing police violence.

This is done as part of Northeastern’s global expansion efforts in which they over-admit students to their school for capital. Despite charging attendees $80,000+ in tuition — furthering the inaccessibility of higher education for individuals marginalized by race, gender, and economic status — this school has failed to address its student hunger and housing crisis. Meanwhile, President Aoun of Northeastern makes roughly $2.7 million annually, ranking the eighth highest-paid private college president in the U.S. empire.

Northeastern administrators continually prioritize profit over the lives of Palestinians and the safety of their students, faculty, staff, and neighboring communities. This was made clear when they ordered police in riot gear to arrest and intimidate over 100 protestors urging Northeastern to divest from Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide. In order to maintain their ties with the genocidal companies being used to massacre Palestinians, Northeastern actively subjected their Boston community to the risk of experiencing police brutality and trauma.

In solidarity with Palestinians (the Indigenous people of Palestine), the traditional council of Turtle Island’s (Mohawk) peoples published a statement citing the Two Row Wampum Peace Treaty, affirming that students occupying McGill and other campuses throughout Turtle Islands are granted “the full right…to be upon said lands, with the expressed intent of engaging with their administration to divest (from Israel’s U.S.-funded genocide).”

A moving video of a Haka by Māhina Huata-Harawira dedicated to Palestine from Aotearoa, New Zealand, shakes my headphones and my hands. There are tears in my eyes, welling with an old hope growing gently, fiercely inside my chest.

Land back is not a metaphor. Northeastern’s violent repression of anti-genocide protestors is a reflection of the colonialism that upholds this very institution, an extension of the same colonialism that informs Israel’s genocide against the Palestinian people. The fight for a free Palestine is also a call to return land to Indigenous people globally in which we collectively dissolve all the oppressive borders imposed by White supremacy.

// Photograph from 2021 No Annexation Solidarity Protest in Yelamu by @creative_mudafukah on Instagram