Prasanna Rajasekaran

In Defense of NUPD

It’s been a week since Northeastern University Police Department (NUPD) announced it would deploy semi-automatic rifles in campus police vehicles during “high-level threats.” Condemnations of the decision have been strong, if expected. Trevor Noah compared Northeastern to prison, which, if you lived in IV freshman year, isn’t completely inaccurate. Northeastern’s ability to make blindly controversial […]

Mizzou Protests and the Misguided Reactionaries of The Atlantic

Over the last four months, The Atlantic magazine has published a slew of articles lambasting college students for their political oversensitivity. Caitlin Flanagan states, “today’s college kids can’t seem to take a joke.” Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt claim trigger warnings and protests against microaggressions exacerbate mental health problems. Conor Friedersdorf questions the vitriol of […]

Come Get Some Delicious Education, Kids!

I work as a student tour guide for Northeastern. My job is simple: show prospective students and parents Northeastern’s campus, field questions about the school, and talk about why I love going here. It’s an easy job and I like doing it. I’m giving excited high schoolers an insider’s look at the fantasyland that is […]

When O’Reilly Attacks

On Tuesday, Bill O’Reilly took down another group of pesky liberals with his patented combination of condescension and gross misrepresentation. But this time his target was…Northeastern? Yes, our beloved school just got torched on the O’Reilly Factor for the following quote, which appears in an RA training pamphlet: “In order to have the experience of […]

Op-ed: Voices not silenced at Northeastern

In response to Prasanna Rajasekaran’s column published on March 31 in the Northeastern University Political Review, I am writing to ensure that our student body receives the opposing view.[1] As a student who has seen more anti-Israel activity than I expected in my first two years at Northeastern, I feel that it is my responsibility […]

SGA Senate Tramples Student Speech

On Monday, March 16, the Student Government Association (SGA) Senate voted “no” on a referendum proposed by the Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), which advocated for divestment from 4 companies that support Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories. The companies – Raytheon, Caterpillar, Hewlett-Packard, and Motorola – have sold products directly to the Israeli […]

Northeastern Administration and Its Investors

At the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict at Northeastern sits Northeastern University administration. Though “administration” is a vague term, I use it to define the upper-echelon of the people at this university: the president, the vice presidents, and the bureaucratic maze of departments and offices that set the standards of the university. President Joseph Aoun […]

Israel, Palestine, and Northeastern University: An Issue of Free Speech and Competing Interests

In March of 2014, Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a student group at Northeastern University, placed dozens of mock eviction notices in dormitories as an act of protest against the forced evictions of Palestinians in Israel.[1] The act was one in a string of controversial SJP protests, which ultimately resulted in the group’s suspension […]

Cuban Privatization: The Newest Victim of a Failed Embargo

The birth of Communist Cuba at the height of the Cold War presented a perceived immediate and dire threat to the United States. In response, President Kennedy authorized a handful of covert CIA operations to overthrow Cuba’s leader, Fidel Castro. All of these attempts failed, culminating with the disastrous Bay of Pigs Invasion. In October […]

4 Years of Citizens United: The Damage and Its Solution

January 2014 marked the 4th anniversary of the highly controversial Citizens United v. Federal Electoral Committee verdict, in which the Supreme Court granted corporations and unions complete first amendment rights. The Court ruled that these entities are allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money on political advocacy as long as that money is not given […]