Over 50 pro-Palestinian protesters walked out of class at 1 p.m. March 31, meeting first for a rally at Centennial Common, then picketing on Huntington Avenue, holding signs and chanting slogans before marching to the steps of Symphony Hall. 

The walkout called for “immigration justice, racial justice and the right to protest,” according to a March 30 Instagram post from the newly-minted Student Mobilization Committee, or SMC.

The SMC is a recently formed coalition that organizes Northeastern students to demand “accountability, justice and equity for marginalized communities through research, advocacy and mobilization” from the university, according to its Instagram page. 

“This walkout is focused around getting Northeastern to actually defend students,” said Dakota Castro-Jarrett, a fourth-year journalism and cultural anthropology combined major. “Students deserve to be protected. Northeastern can’t feign progressive and not do anything about it.” 

After around 40 minutes of chants and speeches at Centennial Common, the protesters began to walk towards Krentzman Quad, where they mounted a picket that blocked eastbound traffic on Huntington Avenue in front of campus. The protesters waved flags and chanted slogans, including “silence is complacency,” “no justice, no peace” and “F*** Northeastern.” Northeastern Vice President for Communications Renata Nyul wrote in a statement to The Huntington News that the protesters departed campus “without incident.”

The protesters then continued marching past campus with Northeastern University Police Department officers lining the route and clearing intersections. The protest dispersed in front of Symphony Hall around 2:20 p.m. 

The protest organizers encouraged participants to wear masks, disengage in conversations with university administrators or police and not give their names to reporters. Some protesters departed from the group to obstruct the view of reporters present, using objects like keffiyehs, flags and signs to block the video camera lens of a reporter from Univision Noticias, an American cable news television program produced in Spanish.

The crowd shouted various chants, including, “What does our tuition fund? Surveillance, bombs, pigs and guns.” The chant aligns with the demands of pro-Palestine protesters who called for Northeastern to stop offering co-ops with military-industrial companies, including RTX, formerly known as Raytheon — a manufacturer of weapons systems used by the Israeli military.

Student protesters have also denounced the university’s financial and professional partnerships with the Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, which have collectively issued over $69 million in grants to Northeastern in 2022. 

The SMC released a list of demands for the university March 24, including the “immediate restoration and protection of the right to protest on campus for all students, staff, faculty and community members.” In the post, the group calls for a reversal of the university’s mandatory unmasking policy, which was added to Northeastern’s 2024-25 Code of Student Conduct.

Daniel Patterson, a professor in the Khoury College of Computer Sciences, spoke at the protest in Centennial Common. 

“Higher education is, or it should be, fundamentally anti-authoritarian. And so schools of higher education pose an existential threat to the authoritarian project currently underway,” Patterson said to the crowd. “For this to be the case, however, we must make our own institutions live up to the values that they sometimes claim they stand for.” 

Around 10 counterprotesters stood behind the crowd, one holding up a drawing of the Israeli flag. One Jewish pro-Israel counter-protester and fourth-year student from the Khoury College of Computer Sciences who spoke to The News on the condition of anonymity due to safety concerns, said they were frustrated with the walkout because they “do not think Israel is committing a genocide.”

“I think this is a very dangerous movement for Jewish people,” the counterprotester said of the walkout’s pro-Palestinian messaging. “I think it is important to stand here in resistance to show that we don’t stand for this.” 

After posting four Instagram posts over the course of a week, the SMC garnered a large crowd for the walkout. 

“Students are becoming increasingly disenchanted with the Northeastern promise,” Castro-Jarrett said. 

Deputy campus editor Aiden Stein contributed reporting. 

Correction: A previous version of this article incorrectly identified a faculty speaker at the protest. This article was updated 11:25 a.m. April 2 to correctly attribute quotes to Daniel Patterson.