A conversation between Stephen Colbert and cellist Yo-Yo Ma at Harvard's Sanders Theatre ended abruptly Thursday night when a fire alarm forced organizers to evacuate the capacity crowd during the question-and-answer portion of the event. Outside, members of Harvard's striking graduate student union picketed, chanting and sounding horns and drums loud enough that audience members inside struggled to hear the two speakers.
The alarm went off roughly 40 minutes into the talk, after Colbert and Ma had answered just three audience questions, according to The Boston Globe. The evening, billed as Arts for Life's Sake, had been scheduled by Harvard's Office for the Arts to run from 7 to 8:30 p.m. and mark the 50th anniversary of the university's Learning from Performers series, with an opening performance by the Harvard Crimson Cellos, per the Harvard Office for the Arts. The talk did not resume after the evacuation. The New York Post reported that organizers escorted Colbert out of the venue once the alarm sounded, and that Colbert had been scheduled to appear with Ma at the event.
Once outside, the crowd of demonstrators was described differently by different outlets. Harvard Magazine put the number of union protesters at about 50, while a Daily Mail snippet described hundreds of student protesters outside the venue. The Boston Globe reported that the demonstrators shouted, blew horns, and pounded on drums, making it hard for the capacity crowd to hear the speakers.
Union Says It Had Nothing to Do With the Alarm
The Harvard Graduate Student Union said its picketing was unrelated to the alarm and that it had no knowledge of what caused it, a statement relayed by the Globe. Cambridge firefighters who responded, along with Harvard staff, checked the system and found no reason for the alarm to have activated before resetting it, the same report noted.
The disruption came amid an ongoing walkout by Harvard graduate student workers, who went on strike on Oct. 27 in a labor dispute the union says remains unresolved over three outstanding demands: safe work, fair pay, and the right to stay, according to the Globe's reporting. The union said more than 100 Harvard workers were continuing their strike picket that night. The Harvard Crimson has reported that HGSU-UAW, which represents more than 4,000 workers at Harvard, began its second walkout of the year after contract negotiations stalled, with demands centered on better wages, protections for non-citizen workers, and independent processes for harassment and discrimination complaints.
A Pattern of Disruptions Across Campus
Thursday's scene at Sanders Theatre was not the strike's first collision with campus life. Earlier in the week, more than 20 striking HGSU-UAW members chanted and sounded air horns outside Emerson Hall while roughly 250 students took a General Education midterm inside, prompting Harvard College deans to say in a statement, carried by The Harvard Crimson, that they hoped the community could agree students have the right to take exams without disruption.
Days before that, more than 200 graduate-union members rallied outside University Hall and delivered a letter urging Harvard deans to push the administration toward a contract settlement, the Crimson separately reported. Taken together, the picket actions reflect a strike that has increasingly intersected with scheduled campus events, from academic exams to high-profile public talks.
