Midterm exam, Stephen Colbert event disrupted as Harvard graduate workers strike

At least two Harvard University events, including a panel Thursday with cellist Yo-Yo Ma and comedian Stephen Colbert, were disrupted over the past two weeks in connection with the Harvard Graduate Students Union strike. 

The graduate workers, who have been on strike since Oct. 27, want higher pay, more “noncitizen worker protections,” and “a third-party arbitration process for discrimination or harassment cases,” The Harvard Crimson reports.

On Thursday, a fire alarm disrupted the event with Colbert and Ma, “forcing attendees to evacuate Sanders Theatre as roughly 80 Harvard graduate student union demonstrators picketed outside,” according to the student newspaper. Audience members told the newspaper that they also heard the protesters while they were inside the theater.

The interruption occurred about half way through the event. The second part later was cancelled even though authorities determined that there was no fire, Fox News reports.

Ahead of the event, union leaders had called on Colbert and Ma to “cancel, postpone or relocate the appearance in solidarity” with the strike, according to Fox:

In a statement, the union said it had repeatedly urged Colbert and Ma to avoid crossing its picket line, including through their respective labor organizations, SAG-AFTRA and the Boston Musicians’ Association.

“They continued the event inside without regard for the picket line, and refused to speak with union members as they left the event,” the union said. “In other words — they crossed our picket line.”

Union president Denish Jaswal told The Crimson that the strike’s leaders did not pull the alarm.

“We would not do such an action. We were out here to peacefully picket,” she said.

Meanwhile, a university administrator warned strikers of disciplinary action Friday if they break campus rules. 

“HGSU-UAW members who violate University policies and rules while exercising their right to strike will be subject to employment disciplinary action,” Paul Curran, managing director of the Harvard Office of Labor and Employee Relations, wrote in a letter Friday, quoted in The Crimson.

In addition to the celebrity event on Thursday, the graduate student strikers also were accused of disrupting a midterm exam on Oct. 29.

Epidemiology Professor David Jones said he gave his students ear plugs, but they still struggled to handle the noise from the picketing graduate workers outside of the midterm for his general education class “Medical Ethics and History.”

“This was not the usual picket. This was a sonic assault: shouting through an amplified megaphone and sustained blasts from horns, sirens, and other noisemakers. At one point someone simply shrieked, incoherently, into the megaphone,” he wrote at The Crimson. 

Jones said the union did inform him ahead of time about its intention to picket nearby, but the university did not have an alternative classroom available for his nearly 300 students. 

“Protesters might have sought to punish me; they only harmed my students,” he wrote.

More disruptions are anticipated in the coming days. 

Campus freedom fellow Steve McGuire with the American Council of Trustees and Alumni posted a copy of the strike schedule on X showing plans to “disrupt more classes this week.”

The union has pointed to Harvard’s $68 billion endowment and a budget surplus as part of its justification for demanding higher pay.

The graduate workers want an “annual pay of $55,000 for research assistants and approximately $45,000 for teaching fellows” as well as 3 percent raises, according to Fox News.

This piece was originally published by The College Fix on November 9, 2026.