The newly formed Student Mobilization Committee, or SMC, released a list of demands for the Northeastern administration through an Instagram post March 24. 

The SMC is a “collective of students at Northeastern who have come together to organize,” and is “demanding accountability, justice and equity for marginalized communities through research, advocacy and mobilization,” according to its Instagram page.  

Its demands include immediate disclosure of all endowment investment information and the reallocation of Northeastern University Police Department, or NUPD, funds to initiatives benefiting the Roxbury community, and were released through an Instagram post which Northeastern’s account was tagged in. 

The coalition’s demands fall into six categories: disclosure, protection, representation, reform, reallocation and reject.

“A university that remains silent in the face of injustice is a university complicit in oppression,” the SMC’s post reads. 

The first demand, disclosure, calls for “immediate financial disclosure from Northeastern University” and asks that the university disclose all direct and indirect endowment investments and publish its operating budget. Additionally, the SMC wants “democratic control over spending,” which entails having the university inform the community about how financial decisions will affect students and ensuring that the administration is held accountable for its decisions. 

Little information is available to the public about Northeastern’s endowment. According to the university’s Fiscal Year 2024 financial statements, endowment investments totaled $1.85 billion in June 2024. The university’s Board of Trustees manages the endowment’s assets, and as of 2022, Cambridge Associates, a global investment group, acts as the primary advisor of the endowment. 

Protection, the second demand, calls for the “immediate restoration and protection of the right to protest on campus for all students, staff, faculty and community members.” The SMC wants to reverse the university’s forced unmasking policy, which was added to Northeastern’s 2024-25 Code of Student Conduct. The policy mandates students wearing a mask to remove it for identity verification upon request from authorized personnel. 

Additionally, the SMC calls for reversing the “revocation of degrees for those involved in nonviolent, peaceful demonstrations” and a rollback of policies that restrict non-violent protests. SMC also called on the university to amend the Student Handbook and Student Code of Conduct so all faculty can participate in protests, among other demands. Currently, per the student handbook, faculty must “seek approval from the Office of the Provost” to organize and participate in on-campus demonstrations. 

“Reform” demands that NUPD undergo “immediate reform” in order to “prioritize the safety and well-being of students, staff and community members.” 

According to the post, the reform would include refusing collaborations with the Department of Homeland Security, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, the Boston Police Department, Massachusetts State Police and all other law enforcement agencies the SMC said are engaged in the “human rights abuses or the criminalization of marginalized communities.”

In addition, the SMC demanded NUPD release data on its operations regularly and establish a democratic oversight committee with the “authority to fire officers, alter training materials and reverse NUPD policies and procedures to ensure they are accountable to the university community.” 

The “reallocation” demand calls for the university to “immediately reallocate funds currently spent on [NUPD] to initiatives that will directly benefit the Roxbury community and the students, faculty and staff who live and work there.” 

The proposed initiatives include allowing local residents to give input in the design and final approval process of any new development projects to ensure that these projects are “community-driven and prioritize the needs of current residents over the interests of developers and newcomers.” 

The “representation” demand calls for “immediate action to address the lack of representation of Black, Indigenous and Hispanic students at Northeastern University.” This demand calls upon the university to expand scholarships and financial aid programs and implement partnerships with local schools to provide college preparation workshops, SAT and ACT prep, mentorship and dual-enrollment programs. 

The SMC also called on the university to develop targeted recruitment strategies to ensure the “student body reflects the diversity of the surrounding community” — in other words, for the racial makeup of the Northeastern community to mirror that of the Roxbury community. 

“Reject” demands that the university “reject its desire to align itself with the federal government or any entity that seeks to maintain the status quo of oppression, silence and complicity.” The SMC specified that it demanded the university release formal statements that acknowledge and condemn “human rights violations, ethnic cleansing, genocides and systemic oppression” taking place globally and specifically mentions Palestine, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Haiti.  

The coalition is also calling on the university to take more concrete action to support its marginalized communities. 

The post contains a link to anonymously sign the organization’s “Pledge for a just Northeastern,” which contains limited information. 

The post also outlined ways the Student Government Association, or SGA, and Northeastern students have expressed their disapproval of the administration’s decisions in the past.  In 2023, SGA passed senate resolution SR-SP-23-104, “A Senate Resolution on Northeastern’s Relationship with the War Industry,” which called on Northeastern to “end all ties with the war industry.” 

Northeastern offers co-ops with RTX, formerly Raytheon, a manufacturer of weapons systems used by the Israeli military, as reported by The Huntington News. Many pro-Palestine protesters want the university to stop investing in RTX because of its ties to the Israeli government.  In an article entitled “Safe Campuses, Civil Discourse: Frequently Asked Questions” published by the university-run media outlet Northeastern Global News, or NGN, the university announced that it would not sever ties with companies that “align with — and enhance — their classroom studies.” The statement also noted that they will not limit employment opportunities based on the demands of students with “strong political viewpoints,” the statement read. 

Last October, pro-Palestine demonstrators protested the presence of military industrial companies that manufacture military equipment that is sold to Israel. These included RTX, Textron Systems, Draper, General Dynamics, MIT Lincoln Laboratory and MKS Instruments.

The post also stated that in April 2024, a coalition of Northeastern student organizations signed a “letter of solidarity” calling on the administration to “stand in support of marginalized communities and global injustices.” 

“Failure to act is not mere inaction — it is a conscious choice to perpetuate the same structures of harm we have been resisting for generations,” the post stated. “Northeastern has the power to either uphold, or disrupt the status quo of oppression. It can choose to align itself with the demands of justice, truth and liberation. The question is whether or not the university will.”