Over 200 people on Sunday night—including students, faculty, alumni, and community members—initiated what they say will be a week-long blockade of Harvard University’s main administrative building as they kicked-off a week of civil disobedience and direct actions designed to elevate and escalate an ongoing student-led campaign to force one of the nation’s most elite post-secondary schools to divest its financial holdings from the fossil fuel industry.

Dubbed ‘Harvard Heat Week,’ the series of actions began on Sunday and will run through Friday.

“We’re actually not that radical. We’re not insane. We’re genuinely frightened for our futures.”
Click Here: Cardiff Blues Store—Chloe Maxmin, Divest HarvardThe blockade of Massachusetts Hall, which houses the office of University President Drew G. Faust, followed a day of activities on campus which focused on the crisis of climate change and the national divestment movement in which schools, local governments, pension funds, religious institutions, and individuals have been urged to pull their investments from the coal, oil, and gas industries. Participants left an evening rally, marched across campus, and took up posts in front of various entrances to the building.

According to Divest Harvard, the group spearheading the activities, “Harvard Heat Week will bring together stakeholders to stand united and call on Harvard to divest its endowment from the fossil fuel industry. The climate crisis leaves no room for neutrality, and we must be clear — sponsoring the destruction of people and planet is NOT an investment.”

Chloe Maxmin, a Harvard senior and co-founder of Divest Harvard, told The Daily Crimson, the school newspaper, that President Faust and the administration have “consistently ostracized” the students pushing for divestment and “used ever-changing statements” explaining their refusal to ditch fossil fuels.

“We’re actually not that radical,” said Maxmin. “We’re not insane. We’re genuinely frightened for our futures and truly believe that Harvard is sponsoring some of that fear.”

Divest Harvard co-coordinator Jasmine P. Opie, a junior at Harvard, said the group has “spent a long time” presenting their arguments to the administration, but to no avail. “The point of our civil disobedience is not just out of the blue,” she said.

Watch this footage produced by the Crimson: