Florida State Students Move Demonstration to 'Free Speech' Zone After Trespassing Arrests By ALEX P. KELLOGG
A group of Florida State University students on Wednesday continued an anti-sweatshop protest on the campus, despite the arrests of several protesters earlier in the week.
The demonstration is being led by the United Students Against Sweatshops, 12 of whose members were arrested by campus police on Monday and charged with trespassing after refusing to move their protest to one of the university's designated "free-speech areas."
Approximately 30 students had camped out in tents in front of the Westcott Building, the campus's main administrative center, for more than four hours on Monday before their arrest. On Wednesday, the protesters moved their makeshift dwellings over to Landis Green, one of the campus's main gathering areas.
The United Students group and other campus organizations have demanded that the university join the Worker Rights Consortium, an anti-sweatshop group that many believe is more effective than the Fair Labor Organization, a similar monitoring organization to which the university already belongs.
FSU's president, Talbot D'Alemberte, says he has discussed the idea of joining the consortium with various campus groups since last spring, but continues to believe it would not be appropriate for the university to do so.
"They seem to be an advocacy organization. We don't join any of those, as much as I believe in many of them," he said Wednesday.
President D'Alemberte pointed out that the university was one of the founding members of the Fair Labor Association, to which many major apparel manufacturers also belong. Student groups, however, claim that the inclusion of manufacturers taints the entire monitoring effort, and have generally endorsed the Workers Rights Consortium as a better alternative.
FSU's Faculty Senate and Student Senate have both passed resolutions urging the university to join the consortium, although President D'Alemberte says he does not anticipate changing his mind on this issue.
The student protesters, meanwhile, feel that being compelled to protest in specific free-speech areas is a violation of their constitutional rights.
"It's ridiculous that students were charged with trespassing on their own university," said Gabriel Pendas, a 19-year-old sophomore from Miami, who also said he was in charge of posting bond for those arrested on Monday. Mr. Pendas added that he and his colleagues moved their protest to a free-speech area on Wednesday only to avoid being arrested.
"Their ability purely to speak-- carry signs and so forth-- that has not been limited," responded President D'Alemberte.