PITTSBURGH (AP) – For the past 10 years, Christie Hudson’s fortunes have been closely linked to the University of Pittsburgh. She earned her bachelor’s degree in English literature from Pitt and her master’s from the Graduate School of Public and International Affairs. Today she’s employed by the school as a project manager at the Learning Research Development Center.

And then there were those 17 days of starving herself in public.

Hudson was one of the young people who staged a high-profile hunger strike in February 1999 over Pitt’s refusal to offer health benefits to the domestic partners of gay and lesbian employees. She was 22, a senior from Castle Shannon on the brink of graduation.

The group, mostly students, wanted a public meeting where the trustees explained their opposition and their legal tactics – specifically, the school’s shameful move to invalidate the city’s entire gay rights ordinance. That little gambit was invoked by Pitt’s lawyers to defend a lawsuit that claimed the university’s benefits policy was discriminatory.

The hunger strikers never got the meeting. But they did get the moral high ground, a lot of local and national attention for their cause, and, five years later, the ultimate vindication: Pitt will begin offering domestic partner benefits in January.

The announcement, if you can call it that, was slipped onto Page 7 of the chancellor’s recent university update, as if the matter were no more significant than a switch in napkin vendors. Even so, Hudson was glad to see her employer and alma mater finally doing the right thing, and she firmly believes that the hunger strikers played an important role.

“We wanted to make some kind of statement about Pitt sacrificing the health of their employees’ partners, so we decided to sacrifice our own health,” Hudson recalled. “We didn’t eat any solid food. We subsisted on juice, water and vitamins, plus a huge donation of Gatorade. It was hard the first couple of days, but then it got easier.

“My mom is a nurse. She was kind of worried, but the university did provide someone from student health to monitor us a couple times. Physically, it was stressful and exhausting. We were trying to go to class, wrap up our final projects and keep up with the media. Sometimes we got 15 or 20 calls a day. I had final papers due. One was for a class on literature and the sublime. I based it on some passages from Heart of Darkness, and all I remember about it is that it was really hard.”

Hudson had a personal stake in the outcome – her partner, Shandra (Denise) Williams, a Pitt graphic designer, is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit. But, she noted, no other strikers had partners on the faculty or staff. Most, not all, were gay or lesbian.

The group began with 21 people, Hudson said. A few got sick and dropped out, and at least one was hospitalized. They hung out in the commons room of the Cathedral of Learning or on the porch of the student union. They dressed in T-shirts that said “Hunger strike for human rights”, passed out leaflets and fielded calls from the news media.

“Every day the administration asked us to stop, and every day we said no,” she said. The group declined an offer to meet privately with the chair in exchange for halting the strike. One trustee met with them on his own but held out no hope.

Professors and some administrators were supportive, Hudson said. But ultimately, “we figured we could starve ourselves to death and it wouldn’t make any difference.” So the 17 remaining strikers ate some food and then camped out in front of the trustees’ office for five more days before giving up the action – but not the cause.

“I’m glad for this decision, but sad that it took five years,” she said. “They can call it competition or market forces, but it was really just a matter of equal treatment.”

Hudson and Williams have stayed with Pitt because they like their jobs and because leaving would have felt like running away. They’re glad to be there for the victory, even though it’s mainly for others – they no longer need domestic partner benefits because as a Pitt employee, each has her own.

A literature major would call that irony, but a hunger striker would call it justice.