‘I knew it was something seismic’

Two years after Yale-Harvard climate change protest disrupted The Game, it resonates for students

NEW HAVEN — Two years after the jaw-dropping Yale-Harvard climate change and fossil fuel divestment protest on the field of the Yale Bowl at The Game — Yale’s traditionsteeped annual football contest with its archrival — the far-reaching direct action remains the highlight of some college activists’ lives.

It was an activist’s dream: a few dozen nervous, well-drilled students looking to get out on the field even for a minute or two — with contingency plans A through H in case some or all of them got stopped and/or arrested along the way — suddenly found hundreds of people pouring out from the stands behind them to join in.

Yale-educated actor Sam Waterston of “Law & Order” fame, who was 79 at the time, was there, too.

The activists sat down on the field — and disrupted the game for about 40 minutes.

Fifty participants were issued citations — but Waterston was not.

Afterward, stories about the protest appeared all over Connecticut, the nation and the world.

In that brief moment, the event became the focus of the worldwide climate change movement.

For those involved, it went beyond their wildest hopes and dreams — and yes, sports fans, Yale ended up beating Harvard 50-43 after the 40-minute delay, clinching the Ivy League championship in the 136th edition of the football rivalry between the two elite universities.

But at protest time, organizers from the two ancient rivals were squarely and entirely on the same page.

“We were surprised. Even we had no idea how big it was going to be and how big a splash it was going to make,” said Nora Heaphy, a New Haven native, one of the organizers at the time and now a Yale graduate working as a research assistant in a Yale lab.

Heaphy, who was one of the students cited, said they all had charges dismissed after doing five hours of community service — something she and several others of those interviewed said was a potent example of their Yale privilege.

In Heaphy’s case, that meant teaching Irish dancing to local youth — something Heaphy started learning at age 6 after seeing the dancers in New Haven’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade, and continued to study until age 18 at West Haven’s Mulkerin School of Irish Dance.

“Obviously, I’m not that old, but it still was the high point of my life so far,” said Heaphy, now 22. “I think it was a lesson in our own power and in the ability to just will something and make it happen. It was just a really beautiful demonstration of our ability to work really hard — and we saw years of organizing pay off in that moment.”

That includes organizing by people who graduated before it ever began, she said.

“It absolutely surprised me — it surprised me and deeply moved me,” said Josie Steuer-Ingall, who just turned 18 a couple of weeks earlier. She was newly arrived at Yale from her home in New York City and had never been involved in any kind of direct-action protest before that.

“We never, in contingent plans A through H, expected to be on the field that long,” Steuer-Ingall said. “It’s just pure adrenaline. We were there and we thought, ‘This is a real disruption,’” she said.

“And then to have this become a (media) flashpoint was incredible,” Steuer-Ingall said. “To have that many people” join in was breathtaking, she said.

“... I really and truly believe ... this is one the most important issues I will organize around.”

Steuer-Ingall believes the event will continue to be a big deal in her life 20 years from now and beyond.

“I don’t know how to describe the way it felt to be on that field, but I knew it was something seismic,” she said. “It’s my central memory of that semester, it’s my central memory of my freshman year — and it made me want to be an organizer.”

Beyond that, “It helped me make sense of my world,” she said.

Steuer-Ingall and Heaphy both said they knew of no plans for any protest at this year’s game.

While it might be easy to get frustrated with the fact that Yale — unlike Harvard — has yet to divest, “If we win, when we win, (the 2019 protest) is going to be a big part of the reason why,” Steuer-Ingall said.

At this point, every school in the Ivy League has agreed to divest its fossil fuel holdings except Yale, Princeton and the University of Pennsylvania, she said.

Harvard announced in September that it would end its investments in the fossil fuel industry.

Harvard President Lawrence Bacow, in a statement posted on the Harvard website on Sept. 9, said, “Climate change is the most consequential threat facing humanity. The last several months have laid at our feet undeniable evidence of the world to come — massive fires that consume entire towns, unprecedented flooding that inundates major urban areas, record heat waves and drought that devastate food supplies and increase water scarcity.”