Cellist Yo-Yo Ma and political commentator Stephen Colbert had to cut short their talk at Harvard University Thursday night when a fire alarm was pulled inside the venue, as striking graduate student workers loudly demonstrated outside, according to their union and published reports.
After author John Green had canceled his in-person appearance at an earlier campus event Thursday, opting instead to appear via Zoom and pledging a donation to a Harvard Graduate Student Union strike fund, it was uncertain whether the renowned musician and liberal humorist would go forward with their event and cross the picket line at Sanders Theater on campus.
They did, and the union quickly spread the word.
“BREAKING: Stephen Colbert and Yo-Yo Ma have crossed the picket line,” the union posted to Instagram Friday night over video footage of demonstrators chanting outside the theater. “100+ Harvard workers continue strike picket.”
During the event, demonstrators shouted, blew horns and pounded on drums, making it hard for the capacity crowd to hear the speakers, the Cambridge Day reported.
The fire alarm went off during the start of a question-and-answer session some 40 minutes into the event, after the two had answered just three questions, forcing an evacuation of the theater and an early end to the event, with possible plans to reschedule at a later date, the Day reported.
Harvard didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Scott Volz, the Cambridge Fire Department’s administrative chief of operations, said firefighters “found no reason for the alarm activation.”
“The alarm system was checked and reset by Harvard Staff and the Fire Department cleared,” he said.
In a separate statement, the union said “a fire alarm sounded during an event that HGSU was picketing. The alarm was unrelated to HGSU’s picketing activity and we have no knowledge of its cause. Members at the picket were relieved to learn that no one inside was at risk. As always, HGSU remains committed to securing a fair contract through collective action and the bargaining process.”
Graduate students walked off the job on Oct. 27, leaving classes untaught and research disrupted in an effort to pressure the university to reach a new contract with the union.
Three outstanding demands — safe work, fair pay, and the right to stay, as the graduate student union describes it — have brought negotiations between university leaders and more than 4,000 student workers to a standstill.
The walkout followed a 40-day strike this spring that stalled as school broke for summer but disrupted Mayor Michelle Wu’s participation at commencement ceremonies.
John Manning, the university’s provost, and Meredith Weenick, its executive vice president, said in a recent letter that the university has continued to show “an unwavering commitment to reaching an agreement” and offered graduate students compounded pay increases and ongoing access to emergency funds for legal services for non-US residents.
On Thursday night, many people posted messages of support for the demonstrators outside the Ma and Colbert event, including one person who wrote, “great work protecting labor rights and abiding by labor and picketing laws — glad everyone is safe!”
But one attendee sharply criticized the demonstrators in a lengthy comment on the union’s Instagram page.
“It was meant to be disruptive as they had air horns and marched outside Sanders just for this event,” the commenter wrote. “Not only was it disrespectful to the guest speakers, it was also disrespectful to the student performers who had the opportunity to perform in front of them.”
Another commenter countered that such criticism betrays a lack of awareness of labor actions throughout history.
“Are you seriously arguing a union strike was impolite and inconvenient?” the person replied. “Read a book.”
Material from previous Globe coverage was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.