Who’s complacent?, Ivy League edition

A group of Yale University graduate students announced Tuesday evening that they would be undertaking a hunger strike to pressure the administration into granting them better union benefits. The strike is taking place in front of University President Peter Salovey’s home.

“Yale wants to make us wait and wait and wait … until we give up and go away,” the eight members of the graduate student union Local 33 announced. “We have committed ourselves to waiting without eating.”

Yale doctoral students currently earn a stipend $30,000 a year, receive free health care, and have their $40,000 tuition paid in full, according to Yale News.

And yet there is an apparent catch:

As it turns out, the hunger strike might not put anyone’s health in peril. According to a pamphlet posted on Twitter by a former Yale student, the hunger strike is “symbolic” and protesters can leave and get food when they can no longer go on.

If you read through the whole link, you will see that the final story has yet to come out, so take this with…a grain of salt.  Unless of course you are on the hunger strike.  After reading through further accounts, my personal sense is indeed that no one at Yale is going to pull a Bobby Sands anytime soon.  In the meantime, the Yale Republicans have set up a barbecue right next to the strikers.

For the pointer I thank Supersonic Eli Dourado.

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