Yale Daily News
On Nov. 23, 2019, during the last Harvard-Yale football game before the COVID-19 pandemic, hundreds of student activists stormed the Yale Bowl field with shouts of “hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go,” “this is what democracy looks like” and “okay boomer.”
The protest, which lasted less than an hour, delayed the second half of the game and ended with nearly 50 arrests. Organized jointly between students from Yale and Harvard, the action called for both universities to divest from fossil fuels amid the ongoing climate crisis. Protesters also chanted for divestment from private prisons and Puerto Rican debt. In the immediate aftermath, the protest became a topic of contentious discussion across the nation, with politicians and celebrities weighing in on the students’ demands and methods. In April 2021, a year and a half later and after further protests, the University began to answer the call for divestment from fossil fuels.
“Students are tired of Harvard and Yale profiting off of climate destruction and neocolonial investments in Puerto Rico’s debt,” stated Divest Harvard’s press release about the Harvard-Yale game protest. “It’s time for more than lip service and greenwashing from academic leaders. Harvard and Yale must address the climate emergency at the scale and with the urgency it demands. This action is only the beginning.”
As of 2021, the Yale Investments Office estimates that 2.6 percent of Yale’s endowment is invested in companies that produce fossil fuels — equivalent to about $800 million. In both 2014 and 2016, the office chose to retain its holdings in these companies.
During the year leading up to the Harvard-Yale game protest, students organized a number of similar protests calling for divestment, including sit-ins at the investment office in December 2018 and March 2019. Nearly 50 students involved in these protests were sent to the Executive Committee for “trespassing.” In September 2019, there was a campus-wide walkout for fossil fuel divestment led by a coalition of environmentalist groups including Environmental Justice at Yale and Fossil Free Yale.
The protest during the 2019 Harvard-Yale game was a collaborative effort between Divest Harvard and the Yale Endowment Justice Coalition. Activists took to the field during halftime with megaphones and large banners, one of which read “Nobody Wins: Yale and Harvard are Complicit in Climate Injustice.”
Rachel Calcott ’22, a member of the Yale Endowment Justice Coalition, told the News that the scale of the participation in the protest was “not expected.” She said that many people spontaneously joined the protest in an “amazing show of support,” leading to a crowd on the field that numbered in the hundreds.
Most of the protesters left after half an hour in response to orders from the game’s announcer, the Yale Police Department and the New Haven Police Department. But some protestors refused to cede their ground and were arrested. 48 activists, including a clinical instructor from the Yale School of Nursing, were charged with disorderly conduct and given misdemeanor summons.
Some criticized the use of the Harvard-Yale game as a venue for protest, with football player Sam Tuckerman ’20 writing in an opinion piece for the News that he “vehemently condemns” the timing of the demonstration, believing that it “stole the spotlight” from the athletes.
The Ivy League also provided a statement, which University spokesperson Karen Peart told the News aligned with Yale’s view on the matter.
“It is regrettable that the orchestrated protest came during a time when fellow students were participating in a collegiate career-defining contest and an annual tradition when thousands gather from around the world to enjoy and celebrate the storied traditions of both football programs and universities,” the Ivy League statement read.
The protest set off a national wave of conversation. On Twitter, politicians including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren and Alexandria Ocasio Cortez, as well as celebrities included George Takei, Kenneth Cole and David Hogg, congratulated the protesters. A number of prominent conservatives publicly criticized the protesters. On FOX Nation, conservative commentator Tomi Lahren compared the protest to a “tantrum,” calling the students involved “crybabies.”
In the time since the protest, climate and divestment activism has continued on Yale’s campus, catalyzing promising recent developments in Yale’s endowment management strategies.
The Yale College Council joined the Endowment Justice Coalition in February of 2020 with a unanimous vote from the YCC Senate. In September 2020, a candidate with a platform focused on fossil fuel divestment gathered enough support to appear on the ballot for the 2021 Yale Corporation election, though they later withdrew to take a position at the White House.
In fall 2020, from Oct. 22-24, Endowment Justice Coalition organizers and supporters occupied Cross Campus in a protest for divestment from fossil fuels and Puerto Rican debt. Participants were provided with a script to call University President Peter Salovey, then-Chief Investment Officer David Swensen and other members of the Yale Corporation to demand action.
During the first day of the three-day protest, Salovey unveiled a plan to create a Committee on Fossil Fuel Investment Principles, which would identify fossil fuel producers with practices that were causing “social injury” and then recommend divestment from them. A statement from the Endowment Justice Coalition called this move “proof that pressure from student activists works.”
The most significant administration action towards divestment occurred in April 2021, when the Committee released its findings. On April 16, the University announced that the Yale Corporation had approved stricter principles for fossil fuel investment. By June, the Yale Corporation plans to publicly name and recommend divestment from the companies that are found to be out of line with these principles.
“I think student pressure will be great,” Jonathan Macey LAW ‘82, chair of the Advisory Committee on Investor Responsibility, said about the future of Yale’s efforts to divest from fossil fuels. “I want to be prodded into faster and better action.”
The first Harvard-Yale game occurred in November of 1875.