Bowdoin College security removed a group of students Friday after their protest violated a school policy of “structures” on the main quadrangle.

Approximately 25 students staged a presence on the quad Thursday afternoon, and 11 slept there overnight to demonstrate against the school’s holdings in companies that trade in fossil fuels, according to organizers.

Divestment has been an ongoing student movement since fall 2012. So far, however, it has galvanized into action neither in the private college’s administration nor its Board of Trustees. Bowdoin College President Barry Mills has stated that he opposes divesting the endowment of fossil fuel-related holdings.

“It’s a very moral issue,” said organizer Matthew Goodrich, of Bowdoin Climate Action. “Companies shouldn’t be profiting from the displacement of hundreds of thousands of human beings every year.”

It was the placement of “structures” — tents made of PVC-pipe, tarps and wooden pallets — that got the young activists in trouble with campus security.

Officers informed activists at 4 p.m. Friday that they could take the tents down and leave, or Facilities and Maintenance workers would do it for them.

“They were told that they could go anyplace else they wanted, but they chose to leave,” said college spokesman Scott Hood. “It was not at all dramatic.”

Goodrich said he and the other students were lobbying for a meeting with the Board of Trustees but had been denied.

“We get requests all the time to put banners up, things like that, but there’s a policy that’s been put in during President Mills’ tenure that we leave the quad as it is,” Hood added. jtleonard@timesrecord.com