Nathan G. Phillips, a professor specializing in physiological ecology at Boston University, has begun a hunger strike to protest the repeated removal of his political posters on campus and to demand the release of students detained by federal authorities.
His academic background and long-standing activism help shed light on the deeper motivations driving this committed scholar and advocate.
On April 15 at 1:00 p.m., after noticing — for the sixth or seventh time — that posters had been taken down from his office window, including one that read “Free Rumeysa” in support of Rumeysa Öztürk, a doctoral student at Tufts apprehended by ICE, Nathan G. Phillips began his hunger strike. His main demand: the “immediate release of Rumeysa Öztürk, Mohsen Mahdawi, and Mahmoud Khalil, as well as an end to the selective removal of political postings on campus,” according to the Boston Globe.
For now, the professor is consuming only water, electrolyte solutions, vitamin supplements, and unsweetened black coffee or tea, seeking to preserve his energy while voicing his opposition to what he calls the “suppression of freedom of expression.”
Phillips teaches in Boston University’s Earth & Environment Department and heads the Sustainable Neighborhood Laboratory. He also collaborates with BU’s Center for Information & Systems Engineering and the Institute for Sustainable Energy. He holds a Ph.D. in environmental studies from Duke University (1997) and a Bachelor of Science in physics from California State University – Sacramento (1989).
This form of protest is not new to Nathan G. Phillips. In January 2020, he undertook a 14-day hunger strike to denounce “serious public health violations” related to the construction of a natural gas compressor station in Weymouth, Massachusetts. In 2022, he joined a collective hunger strike against the Peabody power plant, the Boston Globe notes.
Now 53 years old and of Korean-American heritage, Phillips lost 22 pounds during previous fasts. He cites inspiration from student activist Yosef Abramowitz, who carried out a hunger strike in 1986 calling for a boycott of apartheid.
Dr. Nathan Phillips is not alone in his fight for freedom of speech. Many professors from higher education institutions across Massachusetts have also denounced the repeated attacks by the Trump administration on this fundamental constitutional right.
