The students were denied food and water by University administrators and threatened with expulsion. At 7:00pm on Saturday, April 15, shortly after local television crews left temporarily, UVA administrators ordered the students arrested. Within a few minutes time, squad cars surrounded the building. Some students went limp; some cried. At least one screamed in pain as police carried her to the paddy wagon, through the crowds of student witnesses armed with video cameras and tape recorders.
The students are being held without bail in the Albemarle-Charlottesville Regional Jail. A court appearance is scheduled for Monday, April 17, at 8:30am. Bestselling author and activist Barbara Ehrenriech will lead a rally in support of the students at 1:00pm that day, in front of Madison Hall.
These students are part of a national movement to force colleges to pay a living wage to their workers. Last spring, Georgetown students participated in a successful nine-day hunger strike in support of a living wage, which ended with concessions by the administration. Students have staged sit-ins at Harvard, Berkeley, and other top-ranked universities. At Rutgers University this week, students erected a tent in solidarity with the 17 students locked into the University of Virginia+óGé¼Gäós Madison Hall.
As early as April 1999, eight student activists from the Claremont Colleges participated in a hunger strike, to protest their president+óGé¼Gäós decision not to sign a neutrality agreement for the college+óGé¼Gäós organizing food service workers.
This is the new campus activism. Led by groups such as United Students Against Sweatshops and the Living Wage Coalition, students across the United States are fighting for the workers who clean their toilets, prepare their food, and water their lawns.
At the University of Virginia, the sit-in follows months of negotiation between students and administrators. At their last meeting, a University administrator said +óGé¼+ôSocial justice is not part of the mission of the University.+óGé¼-¥
The students plastered the campus with flyers of the quote, and a simple response: +óGé¼+ôOh really?+óGé¼-¥
For more information on the Campaign, see http://www.uvalivingwage.net. The Washington Post's article today gave a pretty good coverage of it, but missed the indexing to inflation and contractor coverage points. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/16/AR2006041600883.html