Activists Disrupt Harvard-Yale Rivalry Game To Protest Climate Change

The annual Harvard-Yale football game was delayed for almost an hour on Saturday as climate change activists rushed the field at the end of halftime.

Unfurling banners with slogans like "Nobody wins. Yale and Harvard are complicit in climate injustice," protesters from both schools called on the universities to divest their multi-million dollar endowments from fossil fuels companies, as well as companies that hold Puerto Rican debt.

Clad in winter coats and hats, about 150 students sprawled around the 50-yard line at Yale Bowl as loudspeaker announcements and police demanded protesters leave the field. As protesters clapped and chanted "disclose, divest and reinvest," organizers say several hundred more fans left their seats in the stands to join in. By the time play resumed, several dozen people were issued misdemeanor summonses for disorderly conduct.

Harvard senior Caleb Schwartz, one of the protest organizers who was arrested on Saturday, told NPR the mood on the field was joyful, despite the possibility of arrest.

"That moment, when we saw people running onto the field was just really incredible," he said. "I saw organizers around me crying because it was such a beautiful moment."