Hunger strike
On January 29, 1993, the detainees - many having spent a year and a half at Camp Bulkeley - went on a hunger strike. Yale Law School students, who had helped file legal challenges to the policy of holding HIV+ refugees at Camp Bulkeley, joined the hunger strike in solidarity. After one week, the Yale students "passed" the hunger strike to students at Harvard, who in turn passed the strike to students at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. Hunger strikes, rallies and protests were organized on college campuses around the country, with tens of thousands of students participating. These protests, in conjunction with Susan Sarandon and Tim Robbins using their appearance on the 1993 Academy Awards broadcast to bring attention to the refugees' situation, brought increasing political pressure on the Clinton administration to close the camp.