"A University of Virginia professor demanding to join a student sit-in at the university’s administrative headquarters was arrested Wednesday after refusing to leave the students, who huddled on a rug with bursting backpacks, toothbrushes and enough food to last for days.

The 17 students had slipped into Madison Hall at 9:30 a.m. to demand the university give all employees a “living wage” of $10.72 an hour. The students, all undergraduates, described their action as “nonviolent civil disobedience,” which came at the heels of months of rallies and a flood of communication denouncing the university for not acquiescing to the students’ demands.

The students remained bunched together on a rug in the lobby of Madison Hall even as police paced the halls, guarded the building’s main entrance and arrested Wende Marshall, an assistant professor of anthropology. Marshall was charged with trespassing after having been told to leave. The vice president for student affairs later advised the students to leave as well.

When the building closed, no students were arrested; instead, they were told they could use the bathrooms in the building overnight and that if they left, they would not be allowed to return.

“I admire their restraint, but am appalled that [police] arrested a faculty member,” said Susan Fraiman, a UVa English professor.

She described it as a “really shocking spectacle,” and said she supports the students and their cause.

Until the building closed, people with business in Madison Hall were allowed to enter, as were media. Marshall hustled into the building through an unguarded door and was apprehended inside.

“I have a right to be here,” Marshall said. “I don’t mean to be disrespectful. I want to be with my students.”

The students, all members of the UVa Living Wage Campaign, had e-mailed professors and friends from inside the building to encourage them to gather outside. After the students positioned themselves in the building in the morning, all began dialing their UVa friends whose numbers were stored in their cell phones.

The last significant sit-in at UVa was during the former South African policy of segregation known as apartheid.

About a dozen professors and 200 other supporters gathered on Madison Hall’s lawn around 5 p.m. with signs demanding an increase in the minimum pay rate for UVa employees. Their voices could be heard through the building’s walls.

Earlier in the day, UVa professor and NAACP Chairman Julian Bond spoke to another crowd of 200 in front of the Rotunda.

Bond, a nationally known civil rights activist, described the UVa Living Wage Campaign as something “to cure an ill that plagues our community, to make right a wrong.”

“That is the American dream,” Bond said.

Although most of the attendees of both events during the day were students, other members of the community participated by driving by and beeping repeatedly. A UVa worker hopped off a stopped trolley and did a jig in the street to show his support.

The students involved in the sit-in said they’re prepared to stay as long as necessary.

"The campaign has tried its best to be civil and we are still trying to be civil, but it seems we need to get in the way for this university to recognize the people who make it function,” said Nina Robbins, a third-year and one of the 17 students inside Madison Hall.

She said that the administration, in its refusal to up workers’ wages, is “treating someone not as a person, but simply as a laborer. … As a student, I have power and I’ll put myself on the line for [the workers].”

Living wage proponents celebrated a victory last month when President John T. Casteen III announced that all academic and medical center employees would earn at least $9.37 an hour, 49 cents more than the previous minimum pay rate. He attributed that increase to market surveys.

“We feel pretty strongly that the $9.37 we implemented last month is a fair and equitable rate for entry-level employees based on market research,” said Carol Wood, university spokeswoman.

Wood added that benefits bring the lowest pay scale to about $12.66 an hour in total compensation. This adds up to about $6,843 a year.

A small group of students organized a reaction to the campaign with a table where they informed the crowd that not all students support the effort. A high wage floor is not the best way to tackle the issue, fourth-year Karin Agness said.

“The campaign seems to be pushing [with] passion rather than reason,” she said, and noted, “We’re just as concerned about the lowest-paid workers.”

Student organizers celebrated their continued stay in Madison Hall. Third-year Andre Barnes, a former UVa worker, said it was another step on the way to a living wage.

“We will not falter,” he said, “in our quest to bring a living wage to the university.”" (Melanie Mayhew, The Daily Progress, April 13, 2006)