Cynics might say it couldn’t happen to a more deserving pair of schools. But even Harvard and Yale, which for the most part have never met a P.C. cause they didn’t like, probably deserve to have their annual football rivalry game in peace.
The first half of Saturday’s big game, hosted by Yale, saw Harvard leading 15-3. Not promising for diehard Yale fans, but things went downhill from there. At halftime, a reported several dozen protesters walked out onto the field, apparently unhindered, and assembled near the 50-yard-line to unfurl banners and chant angry slogans.
One of the banners read: “Nobody Wins – Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice.”
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Not all the protesters had “climate change” as their priority. According to Fox News, others on the field had “signs that raised issues of Puerto Rican debt and the treatment of the Uighurs in China.”
One of my colleagues, who’s at the #HarvardYale game, snapped this pic of a student protest during halftime. Look closely and you’ll see “Cancel Puerto Rico Debt” written in one of the banners. Hopefully, more folks in privileged circles become aware of what’s up in #PuertoRico. pic.twitter.com/xSMGPhkJzp
— deepak lamba-nieves (@deepakln) November 23, 2019
Video of the incident showed the teams gamely continuing their halftime stretches and skill-practicing on other parts of the gridiron.
The Harvard-Yale football game has been delayed due to students protesting climate change in the middle of the field. pic.twitter.com/uY9Kc3Mn32
— ESPN College Football (@ESPNCFB) November 23, 2019
Yale-Harvard is under delay because of a student protest. We’ve hit peak 2019. https://t.co/Am5e12U2el
— Barstool Sports (@barstoolsports) November 23, 2019
Security police in yellow vests lined up along the sidelines, but there was no intervention until halftime expired. At that point, the public address announcer began appealing to the protesters to get off the field.
Chants of “Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Fossil fuels have got to go!” were interrupted by the public address announcer imploring the protesters to leave.
“As a courtesy to both teams, the game must resume,” he said.
Eventually, with time ticking by, the police had to move in and begin physically escorting protesters away. Resisters were warned they would be arrested. The game delay amounted to about an hour, which was long enough for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to weigh in with some profound philosophical support.
Activism disrupts the present to change the future. 🌎 https://t.co/K4OLyeATMu
— Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@AOC) November 23, 2019
The protest interlude left a sense in its wake that some undergrads had just learned a new word this week. “Complicit” was everywhere.
Some of the banners at the Harvard-Yale climate change protest. It was kind of cool to be a witness to something trending #1 on Twitter. pic.twitter.com/ThatewIBCV
— Val (@vewalker) November 23, 2019
Some witnesses were stoked.
https://twitter.com/TaifJany/status/1198375155627630592
Others were more meh.
https://twitter.com/boredplshelp/status/1198373858878705664
Yale staged a comeback in an overactive second half to win 50-43 in overtime.
