A climate change protest got in the way of Harvard and Yale’s historic Ivy League football rivalry game on Saturday, as activists delayed the start of the second half by running onto the field in New Haven, Conn.
With the Crimson taking a 15-3 lead into the locker room at halftime, protesters from both schools went to midfield at around 1:40 p.m. ET following the performance by the Yale band. The group eventually grew from a few dozen into the hundreds, and after the field was cleared, the game was resumed at 2:48 p.m. ET.
Written on one of the several banners carried onto the field was, “”Nobody wins. Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice.”
Players who were warming up for the second half returned to their locker rooms until order was restored.
ESPN reported that a number of protesters tied themselves together and asked to be arrested. Some of the spectators were taken off the field by police. A few remaining protesters who stayed on or around the field after order was restored were told by Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins they would be arrested.
According to Harvard student Caleb Schwartz, who is a spokesman for the group Divest Harvard, the protest has been planned for months.
“This is a very deliberate choice of targeting this specific to get our action out there,” Schwartz told ESPN’s Paul Kix.
Harvard and Yale went on to finish the 136th edition of their rivalry called “The Game.”
—Field Level Media