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Smith College, in Northampton, MA, which is connected to Hampshire College in Amherst, MA through the Five College Consortium engaged with divesting from South Africa several years later. In the spring semester of 1986 students at Smith College protested the Board of Trustee’s decision not to fully divest the college’s endowment from companies in South Africa. Student protests included a sit-in in College Hall, the main administrative office which included nearly 100 students sleeping in over night on February 24th, 1986. The next day students staged a full blockade of the building, not allowing any staff into the building and anticipating arrest, though the President of the college at the time, Mary Maples Dunn, refused to have the students arrested.

A comprehensive list of the demands they made throughout the demonstration was published on February 28th, 1986, at 8:30 am. The “Women at College Hall” agreed to end the blockade if The Board of Trustees agreed to “issue a statement of intent to deliberate again, with a quorum, the issue of divestment” before Spring Break, and that that the Investor Responsibility Committee with meet with representatives from the South African Task Force, the Ethical Investment Committee, and students from the Divestment Committee to look at “a restructuring of the investment policy.” Students also demanded that the Board of Trustees “recognize the need for more dialogue with the Smith College community” and that they act on this with more meetings and transparency. In relation to the action, students demanded that a required teach-in be help to educate the college and the Board of Trustees on divestment, South African apartheid, and the College Hall Occupation, in addition, a booklet would be compiled by the demonstrators that would be distributed to the college to educate the community on the movement. They also demanded that the president grant amnesty to anyone who directly or indirectly participated in the occupation.

On March 1st, 1986, the protest ended when negotiations with administrators led to an agreement that the trustees would re-evaluate their decision, a mandatory teach-in would be held, and amnesty would be granted to anyone involved in the demonstration. After student pressures, Smith College voted to divest all $39 million in stocks that they held in companies working in South Africa by October 31, 1988.