As of April 23, nineteen members of the University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) Equal Rights Alliance are in their twelfth day of a hunger strike, consuming only water, fruit juice and sports drinks; their spokesperson has dropped 20 pounds, and some are becoming dehydrated. Thirteen demonstrators began the hunger strike on April 11; two had to drop out for health reasons, but more joined in along the way. Their basic demand is that the University's Board of Trustees join an open forum with the campus and city communities for an exchange on the University's refusal to extend health benefits to the domestic partners of its gay and lesbian employees -- a policy the University has chosen to defend with a legal challenge of the city's equal rights ordinance against sexual orientation discrimination. The protesters have received a limited counter-offer, but are holding out for the full forum. As spokesperson Robin Moll told the "Pittsburgh Tribune-Review," "There's a lot of fight left in us."

On April 22, the hunger strikers sat in the waiting area of Pitt Chancellor Mark Nordenberg's office to ensure that they would not simply be ignored. While they described this action as an "occupation," they also said they were simply waiting to hear a date for the open forum. Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Dr. Robert Gallagher transmitted a message to them: if they would end the hunger strike, then Chair of the Board J.W. Connolly would meet privately with two of them, specified by name, on April 23. The hunger strikers asked to be able to include additional people in that meeting, since public accountability is their goal. While they were willing to meet as Connolly specified to keep lines of communication open, they were not willing to end their hunger strike for the meeting he offered. According to hunger striker Christie Hudson, one of the representatives chosen for the meeting, Connolly failed to appear for the appointment.

In a conversation with NewsPlanet, Hudson sounded drained but determined. While she said she was "doing okay" although tired, she added softly, "It's tough sometimes."

In an April 22 statement, the Equal Rights Alliance described their desire for a public forum with the Trustees. "It is not unreasonable to expect that when the faculty, students, staff, community and City government have universally condemned Pitt's actions, the Board ought to at the very least explain its decision" to withhold the benefits and attack the city ordinance. The condemnations referred to have come in the form of resolutions approved by various campus bodies, most recently an April 19 resolution from the Student Government Board in support of the hunger strikers.

Connolly has been the only member of the Board to make any public statements in the course of the controversy, which began three years ago when a lesbian former instructor filed a lawsuit (taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union) after being denied health benefits for her partner, but which has heated up considerably in the last few months. He repeated to the "Tribune Review" on April 22 the position he has held all along, which is that protesters' beef should not be with the University, but with a state legislature which has not included sexual orientation in its human rights laws nor recognized same-gender couples (although the state does recognize the "common law" marriages of heterosexual domestic partners of several years' standing). He said, "They need to understand this whole thing is not about same-sex couples or same-sex benefits. They have been drawn into an attempt to circumvent the laws of the Commonwealth," Connolly said. "Please get a bus ticket. Go to [the state capital] Harrisburg. If you want a hunger strike on the Capitol steps, at least that'll be where something can happen to benefit them."

The Equal Rights Alliance responded to that argument in a statement April 22, saying, "The University of Pittsburgh itself is directly discriminating against gays in two ways. First, Pitt recognizes and accepts domestic partners -- they even offer them limited benefits. They specifically chose, however, not to extend medical benefits, despite the fact that married couples receive them. Second, Pitt chose the criterion of marriage, knowing full well that it was a standard gays couldn't legally meet. Pittsburgh's Human Relations Commission determined that because of this, Pitt discriminates against its gay employees. An analogous situation would be if police decided to hire only people over six feet tall. While there is no law against height discrimination, such a requirement has a disparate impact on women and is therefore discriminatory." The University's attorneys have maintained that Pittsburgh cannot enforce its city ban on sexual orientation discrimination because Pennsylvania's civil rights law does not include that category.