There is an excellent episode in the animated series “King of the Hill” when Hank Hill, having discovered that his niece Luanne is being held captive by a vegetarian doomsday cult, sets up a grill next to the cult’s compound and starts smoking good old fashion Texas barbecue. Within minutes, the members of the cult, including Luanne, run screaming out of the compound for some of that brisket and ribs. Clearly, someone at the Yale College Republicans is a fan of the show for how can one otherwise explain the way they decided to taunt a group of teaching assistant “hunger strikers.”
The affair started when eight Yale graduate student teachers set up a tent next to University President Peter Salovey’s home and declared that they would not eat until Yale yields to their demands, including allowing a student teacher union.
The Hunger Strikers will not wait until they starve to death, however. When one cannot continue and has to eat, then someone else will be invited to take their place.
Teaching assistants at Yale have a very generous gig, getting free tuition, free health care, and a $30,000 a year stipend for passing out exams and grading papers. Most people would think that the compensation is pretty generous and certainly not worth pretending to be Gandhi to quibble about. Of course, the Indian pacifist leader was trying to get Hindus and Muslims to stop killing each other and not fatten his wallet.
In any case, the Yale College Republicans, in the tradition of the Sage of Arlen, Texas set up a grill next to the hunger striker tent and started smoking up some beef, baked beans, and corn on the cob.
They are serving meals to people in the community. The fact that the smell of the delicious food will torment the entitlement-addled hunger strikers is considered just a happy side effect.
The Yale administration, uncharacteristically, is holding firm, believing no doubt correctly that students starving themselves (though not to death) is so melodramatic that most people, even the student body of the University, will lack any form of sympathy.
No one, so far as can be determined, has even accused the conservative students of appropriating Texas culture at the famous New England school.
If things turn out as they should, the so-called hunger strike will peter out as the participants quit or are carried out unconscious. In the meantime, the event is providing endless material for commentators to muse about the lengths that entitlement-addled millennials will go to demand what they think is their due. If the university doesn’t cave, the student teachers will be given a valuable life lesson about making silly demands in a silly fashion.
