Proving the power of collective action, a group of college students in Northampton scored a major victory against climate change. On October 18, Smith College announced it will stop buying stock in fossil fuel companies and will sell the stock the college owns in those companies. More than $100 million of Smith College's $1.9 billion in savings is invested in fossil fuel companies. The students used rallies to pressure the college to divest.

Jessica Brown is one of the Smith students involved with the group Divest Smith. She said, "Last semester, we worked with the Student Government Association to pass a student body referendum on fossil fuel divestment. It passed with 93 percent support."

All of Smith's undergraduate students are women. The college admits men to its graduate school.

Protests that succeeded in getting colleges in the USA to divest from South African companies in the 1970s and 1980s helped bring about the downfall of apartheid.