A Jewish student group on campus canceled a talk titled “Israel’s Attack on Gaza: The Question of Genocide, and the Future of Holocaust and Genocide Studies” after the university allegedly asked the group to give it the names of registered attendees.
In a March 7 Instagram post, Northeastern University School of Law’s Jewish Law Students Advocating for Justice, or NUSL JLAJ, announced Raz Segal, an Israeli historian and associate professor of Holocaust and genocide studies at Stockton University, would give the talk March 27.
A day before the event, the group announced the event was canceled.
NUSL JLAJ and Rachel Rosenbloom, a Northeastern law professor and the faculty advisor of NUSL JLAJ, wrote in statements to The Huntington News that when the university told the organization that additional measures were needed to host Segal as a speaker, the students complied and the new plan was accepted by the university.
“A few days later, the university suddenly reversed course and issued an ultimatum: If the students did not hand over to the [Northeastern University Police Department] the names of everyone registered for the event, the university would cancel it,” Rosenbloom wrote.
The talk was going to cover Israel’s war on Gaza and its impact on how genocide is studied in the future. NUSL JLAJ’s talk was scheduled the week before Northeastern’s Holocaust and Genocide Awareness Week from March 31 until April 8, which also highlighted Jewish speakers on various topics, including the Holocaust and Judaism. A March 28 email sent to students about the events stated, “Registration is not required; in-person attendance is on a first-come, first-served basis.”
“We regret that Northeastern’s threats to student safety prevented us from hosting Dr. Segal, whose work offers so much insight into the devastation of global genocides,” NUSL JLAJ wrote in a statement to The News. “Northeastern’s approach represents a clear case of viewpoint discrimination, if not antisemitism, against Jews who support Palestine. Northeastern’s Jewish community is not a monolith, and we condemn Northeastern’s refusal to allow us to speak about the genocide of our people. We also condemn its total disregard for students’ collective safety.”
Renata Nyul, Northeastern’s vice president for communications, wrote in a statement to The News that the NUSL JLAJ did not follow proper procedures in holding the event.
“A student group in Northeastern’s law school organized an event and invited a speaker without going through the proper university protocols. Student Life staff worked with the group to make the event possible by putting the appropriate registration and safety procedures in place,” Nyul said. “A couple of days before the event was to take place, the student group canceled the event.”
Northeastern’s Center for Student Involvement oversees events for undergraduate and graduate events on campus, according to its website. Rosenbloom directed The News to the NUSL Student Information handbook, which says that event-related concerns are handled by NUSL’s Office of Academic and Student Affairs, and the associate dean for administration and finance acts as the School of Law liaison with Northeastern Public Safety Division regarding building security and access for after-hour events.
As of the Friday before the event took place, Rosenbloom said Houghton, as well as Associate Dean for Belonging and Student Affairs Kiana Pierre-Louis and Associate Dean for Academic and Faculty Affairs Hemanth Gundavaram, had signed off on the students’ plan for the event and “were in communication with Student Life, NUPD, and other parts of the central administration.”
In a statement to The News, NUSL JLAJ said that “just days after telling us that this was their official policy that could not be worked around, Northeastern did not require registration this week in connection with its own Holocaust and Genocide awareness programming. The key difference in our events is our acknowledgement and focus on the genocide of Palestinians.”
A Northeastern spokesperson said there was “no difference” in the protocols followed for these events as it relates to registration, and it is “standard practice to ask for a list of attendees at these and other related events.”
NUSL JLAJ is a student organization of Jewish law students at Northeastern’s School of Law who “are in full support of Palestinian liberation” and “stand in solidarity with [the] pro-Palestinian movement,” according to its Instagram account. The organization has held other events on campus, including a teach-in about antisemitism and anti-Zionism and walkouts in solidarity with Palestine.
Segal, the intended speaker at the event, has been outspoken in his disapproval of the Israeli government. He published multiple works about mass violence and genocide, including “A Textbook Case of Genocide” focusing on Israel’s war on Gaza and “Genocide in the Carpathians: War, Social Breakdown, and Mass Violence, 1914-1945.”
Segal was poised to lead the University of Minnesota’s Center for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, but the university rescinded the offer last June after Segal wrote that Israel was committing genocide. Two of the center’s board members resigned to protest his hiring and the Jewish Community Relations Council of Minnesota and the Dakotas campaigned against hiring Segal, labeling him as “extremist.”
“At a time when [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement] agents are abducting off the streets students exercising their right to academic freedom and free speech on the issue of Israel’s attack on Gaza, university administrators should aim to protect students, not put them at risk,” Segal wrote in a statement to The News. “How does the university explain putting students at risk, many of whom in this case are likely Jews?”
Segal said he asked the students not to hand over a list of attendees’ names, stating he “would not speak at Northeastern University under these conditions.”
“What does it mean when Northeastern University’s leaders demand that a Jewish student group in its law school hand over lists of students who registered to attend an event it organized on Israel’s attack on Gaza — an event that Jewish faculty members supported and that was supposed to feature me, an Israeli Jewish scholar of the Holocaust and genocide?” he wrote.
The cancellation comes as the Trump administration revokes the legal status of several non-citizens engaging in protests or political discourse on college campuses. Most recently, Northeastern announced approximately 40 of its students and recent graduates have had visas revoked. Though, according to its “Navigating a New Political Landscape” FAQ page, there is “no evidence” any of the terminations are related to political advocacy or speech.
Instagram users and Northeastern students in the comment section of the cancellation post condemned the university for its actions.
“Given the recent disappearances of university students alleged to have participated in on-campus activism, Northeastern’s attitude towards its students’ safety is extremely concerning. Rumeysa Ozturk’s kidnapping and disappearance occurred just up the road from Northeastern near Tufts University,” NUSL JLAJ wrote in a statement to The News. “Northeastern demanded a list of names of the students who would have attended Dr. Segal’s talk on the weaponization of the Holocaust last week, which would have then been given to the Northeastern University Police Department.”
Rosenbloom echoed this sentiment, stating that NUSL JLAJ was unwilling to put students in danger by handing over names, and therefore canceled the event.
“In light of the way that ICE [Immigration and Customs Enforcement] is targeting students who have expressed solidarity with Palestine, and in light of the fact that the university has never given any guarantee to international students that it will not cooperate with ICE, many people would have felt at risk if their names were being turned over to NUPD,” Rosenbloom wrote.
Rosenbloom said she sees the university requiring a list of attendees as a shortcoming in facilitating open discourse.
“Handing names over to the police is not something we ever want to see normalized on a college campus, where we should be encouraging the free exchange of ideas,” she wrote.
Correction: This article was updated April 9 at 10:45 a.m. to correct the procedures for event approval for NUSL student organizations and 10:00 a.m. April 10 to correct the Center for Student Involvement oversight of both undergraduate and graduate student organizations.
