A horde of furious Morsels laid siege to the News’ headquarter shortly after midnight Friday, protesting their last-place rating in the residential college satisfaction survey published earlier this week.

Of course, it was the Morsels’ own votes that put them there.

The Morsels brought a giant lipstick resting on a tank — the replica of Morse’s symbolic pop-art sculpture from the Swing Space courtyard. (The original remains in the college proper during the current renovation.) A handful of students moved it in a U-Haul truck into the driveway off York Street and reassembled it.

The majority of the mob marched down York Street toward the News all the way shouting “Morse, Morse, Hung like a Horse!” and singing the happy birthday song to Samuel Morse, whose birthday is April 27.

As the Lipstick was situated in front of the News’ entrance, Morse College Council Vice President Kevin Adkisson ’12 stood atop it and delivered a speech expressing the college’s disappointment with the survey’s findings.

“Where does journalism meet propaganda?” he cried. “Where does reporting the truth to the people coalesce with promoting an extreme bias towards your fellow brethren?

“Forty years ago, the Lipstick was used as a protest to Vietnam,” he continued. “It was the celebration of love, pride beauty, and above all, the truth. Though we cannot equate ourselves to something as extreme as our forefather’s struggles, we do feel that this is WAR.”

In the end, the plot fizzled as the Yale Police heard the ruckus. The crowd submissively dispersed, but a few Morsels had to stay behind to sheepishly disassemble the Lipstick, which was blocking a fire lane.

The News politely declined the college’s offer to keep the Lipstick in the garden outside 202 York St.

The News e-mailed a survey to 5,183 undergraduates on the evening of April 12 and received 1,613 responses in the 48 hours that followed. NetID login was required to ensure that only students took the survey and took it only once. Respondents were asked to rate their colleges in a number of categories on a scale of one to 10. Approximately the same number of students responded from each residential college.