Statement Filed for the Boston City Council Committee on Education March 23 2026 Hearing (Docket #0587)

3/23/2026

Today I filed a written statement with exhibits as part of the Boston City Council Committee on Education's hearing to examine administrative transparency, student representation, and student rights at Northeastern University and other private higher education institutions in the City of Boston.

See, Docket #0587, "Order for a hearing to review administrative transparency, equitable student representation, and student freedoms in higher education," https://www.boston.gov/public-notices/16570106.

The hearing was sponsored by Councilors Julia M. Mejia and Miniard Culpepper and held on March 23, 2026 at Boston City Hall. The notice states: "the Boston City Council has an interest in understanding how higher education institutions in the City are addressing issues related to transparency, governance, and student engagement." (Notice PDF).

My statement provides firsthand testimony and documentary evidence from my time as Program Manager at Northeastern University from September 2023 through September 2024. My statement addresses the three core concerns identified and documents how NEU's internal "accountability" infrastructure functions as an instrument of suppression and concealment.

My statement includes:

NEU's "Impact Engine" initiative, which based on my experience, are internally funded shell programs designed to obtain federal center grants without substantive program scope or activity, while concurrently operating outside university policy, federal grant regulations, and applicable law;
My formal complaints to NEU's internal compliance, audit, and HR functions beginning in January 2024 about a large "Impact Engine", and NEU's institutional poor response to those complaints;
The retaliatory performance review issued fifty-eight days after my formal complaint and escalation that claimed my protected complaint was misconduct and my performance development plan was to stop making complaints and do whatever my supervisor told me to do; it also claimed I don't "understand" "regulations" and instructed me to not speak with legal, compliance, or HR teams without prior supervisor approval; and then NEU's VP of Audit/Compliance's subsequent condonation of both the underlying violations and the retaliation;
NEU's abrupt termination of my employment during PFML-protected medical leave, citing the "performance plan" that directed me to stop reporting compliance concerns or insisting on regulatory compliance;
Federal enforcement actions following my complaints, including an NLRB finding of merit on my complaint of unlawful policies, FBI and EPA OIG investigations, OSHA and MassDEP investigations, and NSF audit findings confirming the same failures I had reported internally; and,
Examples of the structural mechanisms by which NEU coerces student workers (particularly international students on temporary visas) into complicity with its institutional misconduct.

The statement is accompanied by a sixteen-exhibit evidentiary packet including the EthicsPoint complaint, performance review, audit correspondence, PFML and termination documentation, NLRB charges and letter, and federal agency complaints and correspondence.

Written comments submitted to the Committee become part of the public record and are available to all Councilors. The statement and exhibits are attached below.

E-filed statement: