Move over, Colin Kaepernick. Your kneeling stunts have nothing on privileged Ivy Leaguers who disrupted a college football classic. Students from both competing schools stormed the field before halftime at the annual Harvard-Yale matchup in New Haven, CT. Why? Because of the new cause célèbre among Millennials: the dreaded climate change.  I guess Black Lives Matter is sooo last year.

Here’s what happened just prior to halftime.

The Stupid went on for nearly an hour while some students unfurled banners that read, “Nobody wins. Yale & Harvard are complicit in climate injustice,” “This is an emergency,” and even something about Puerto Rican debt relief. Of course there was chanting, too: Hey, hey, ho, ho, fossil fuels have got to go.

Someone should tell them the Sixties called — they want their “hey, hey, ho, ho” chant back.

The police responded by doing. . . not much. After about 15 minutes of these shenanigans, Yale Police Chief Ronnell Higgins addressed the intransigent Ivy Leaguers by telling them they made their point. The public address announcer asked them to leave, repeating “As a courtesy to both teams, the game must resume.”

To which the protestors snarked back their current favorite retort: Okay, Boomer.

Meantime the students sat or milled around the field, vaping, drinking beer, and taking selfies. Selfies on smart phones first introduced by Boomer Steve Jobs, mind you. Those students might abound in privilege, but they certainly lack self-awareness.

After about an hour, police managed to escort most of the students off the field, and arrested about 20-30 diehards who remained. But the biggest impact was the delay of the game. That’s because Yale Bowl in Connecticut doesn’t have stadium lights, and the game itself went into double overtime. Sunset in New Haven was set for 4:26 ET, and the game didn’t end until 4:38 ET. By the way, in case you’re wondering, Yale pulled off a win, 50-43.

Credit: CircaSassy@flickr/Public Domain.

Now if you think that this was a spontaneous flash mob action, bury that thought. Caleb Schwartz, a Harvard student and leader of the group “Divest Harvard,” bragged to ESPN that the action was in the works for months. “This is a very deliberate choice of targeting this specific [game] to get our action out there,” he said.

Not only that, but the captain of Harvard’s football team supported the protests, too. Defensive back Wesley Ogsbury posted a prepared statement on Twitter (in other words, he read from a script — monotonously I might add) in which he boasted of wearing orange wristbands after the game — “the color of the Divest movement.” He continued:

“We’re coming together to call on Presidents [Lawrence] Bacow and [Peter] Salovey, to divest from the fossil fuel industry now, for the sake of our generation.”

Why?

“But at this moment, both our institutions continue to invest in the industries destroying our futures. And when it comes to the climate crises, no one wins.”

Naturally, the Twitter mob squeed with delight and watched the video over 140K times within an hour of Ogsbury posting it.

Plus, the usual suspects showed up on social media to back the protestors of privilege. People like Elizabeth Warren, who tweeted:

“I support the students, organizers, and activists demanding accountability on climate action and more at #HarvardYale. Climate change is an existential threat, and we must take bold action to fight this crisis.”

In addition, Bernie Sanders enjoined the old socialist blather about “justice:”

“When people come together to stand up for justice, we win. Congratulations to the young people demanding a sustainable future for our planet. We are with you in this fight.”

Finally, the Queen Bee of the Green New Deal, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, simply tweeted:

“Activism disrupts the present to change the future.”

Of course she did.

I wonder what parents think about their pampered spawn throwing this tantrum at the Yale Bowl. After all, the 2017 median family income for Harvard undergrads clocked in at triple the national average, at $168,000. At Yale, the median family income ranked over $192,000. I would think that Mummy and Daddy probably have some funds invested in fossil fuel stocks, don’t you? And maybe some of those investments are helping pay for Bradford’s and Bunny’s ginormous tuition.

But fear not, those of you who yearn for a classic college game between rivals. A game that won’t be interrupted by stupid student tricks. The Army-Navy game is coming up on December 14th. Having been a regular viewer of that classic for many years now, I can guarantee you that tomfoolery like that at the Harvard-Yale game will not be happening at Lincoln Financial Field in Philadelphia.

Featured image: Daniel Hartwig@flickr/cropped/CC BY 2.0.