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Saturday, November 23, 2019

College football delayed by Climate Catastrophe protest



ESPN reports:

The start of the second half of Saturday's Harvard-Yale game was delayed by nearly an hour after a number of spectators rushed the field to stage a climate change protest.

The field was ultimately cleared, and the game resumed at 2:48 p.m. ET.

Some protesters held banners asking their colleges to act on climate change and Puerto Rican debt relief, including one sign that read, "Nobody wins. Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice."

"Hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go," some protesters chanted.

Caleb Schwartz, a Harvard student and spokesman for the group Divest Harvard, said Saturday's protest was the result of months of coordination.

"This is a very deliberate choice of targeting this specific [game] to get our action out there," Schwartz told ESPN's Paul Kix.

In a statement, the Ivy League referred to the protest as "regrettable."

In its own statement, Yale said that while it "stands firmly for the right to free expression," it had issues with how the protesters went about their demonstration.

"The exercise of free expression on campus is subject to general conditions, and we do not allow disruption of university events," Yale said in a statement.

Saturday was the 136th edition of "The Game" between Harvard and Yale. The Bulldogs clinch the Ivy League title with their 50-43 win in double overtime.

The delay created by the protesters presented a potential problem for the game's finish as Yale Bowl lacks stadium lights and the double-overtime conclusion forced the game to be completed in near darkness.

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