ROANOKE, Virginia—A group of students, alumnae, art donors, and former employees filed injunctions Tuesday to prevent financially unstable Randolph College in Lynchburg from selling four paintings from its museum collection in November, reports the Daily Press.

The private college estimates it will receive at least $32 million, which will go toward its endowment, from a Christie's sale of Men of the Docks by George Bellows, A Peaceable Kingdom by Edward Hicks, Through the Arroyo by Ernest Hennings, and Troubador by Rufino Tamayo.

"This motion for injunction seeks to stop the college from irreparably harming their reputation and their world-class American art collection," Anne Yastremski, executive director of an alumnae group supporting the lawsuits, said in a statement. Yastremski said the Bellows piece, the most valuable of the lot, was bought in 1920 to improve the arts in Lynchburg.

The paintings were removed from the college's Maier Museum on Oct. 1, the same day trustees voted to sell them.

The decision to sell the paintings has raised protest from the Virginia Association of Museums, the Association of Art Museum Directors, and the College Art Association, among other organizations.