Overview
- A sold‑out conversation with Stephen Colbert and Yo‑Yo Ma at Sanders Theatre was stopped when a fire alarm was pulled, forcing an evacuation roughly 40 minutes into the program on Thursday.
- The Cambridge Fire Department inspected the alarm, found no identifiable cause, and Harvard staff reset the system before the audience was sent home.
- The Harvard Graduate Students Union urged the performers to avoid crossing its picket line but denied any role in triggering the alarm and said it had no knowledge of its cause.
- Event organizers escorted Colbert and Ma from the venue and did not restart the scheduled 90‑minute program, and Harvard has not confirmed whether the talk will be rescheduled.
- The disruption comes as HGSU enters a strike over pay, non‑citizen protections and grievance procedures, a dispute that has prompted some speakers to move events online or donate fees in solidarity and could affect future campus programming and negotiations.