For 16 days, at least a dozen students sat outside the office of Chancellor James Moeser.
CHAPEL HILL -- A sit-in at UNC Chapel Hill that began two weeks ago ended with five arrests Friday morning.
For 16 days, at least a dozen students sat outside the office of Chancellor James Moeser. They want the university to sign on to a program that they believe will ensure that apparel with the university logo does not come from a sweatshop. But police moved in Friday morning after the students carried their protest inside the chancellor's office.
"We wanted to make a clear message to the chancellor and the next chancellor that we as students of the university will stay committed to this issue and we will not let business run as usual if he was not going to adopt the [designated suppliers program]," said Anthony Maglione, a UNC Chapel Hill junior who watched his friends get arrested. He wondered whether police were applying "scare tactics," and wondered what happened to one of the students taken into custody.
"It surprised me that they led Linda Gomaa outside the building," Maglione said. "They separated her and isolated her from the group, and then drove her away in a police car."
The students who were arrested face charges of disorderly conduct, and were taken to the Orange County jail.
Earlier in the morning, Moeser called a special meeting of the university's Labor Licensing Code Advisory Committee to talk about the university's fair labor policies. The university is a member of two national organizations that monitor fair labor practices, and officials have said they've already taken steps to ensure the companies that work with the university follow fair labor policies.
"We all agree that this university is committed to the fairest fair labor standards across the world and at the same time we recognize that this is a very complex issue to which there is no simple silver bullet solution," Moeser said.
One student protester, Salma Mirza, sat on that committee, and asked the group to endorse a resolution that called for the university to agree to the students' demands.
"We've been asking Chancellor James Moeser to sign on to the 'sweat free' purchasing policy, called the designated suppliers program, which would ensure that our university's existing labor codes of conduct would be enforced, and that our apparel would not be made under sweat shop conditions," Mirza explained in an earlier interview.
A sit-in at UNC Chapel Hill that began two weeks ago ended with five arrests Friday morning.
But Moeser called the policy "wonderfully idealistic."
"But it's very simplistic, and I think ultimately ineffective," Moeser said. "But we'll continue to look at it."
Seven committee members voted against her resolution Friday, but UNC-CH professor Altha Cravey was one of the five who voted for it.
"I think there's a moral imperative to act on this issue and to feel good about UNC logo-ed apparel, and feel good when we buy a sweatshirt that says 'UNC,' and feel good about our brand," Cravey said. "These students were really committed, and they made it clear that they were really committed. They also made it clear that this sit-in was a last resort, but it meant a lot to them that they would put their lives on hold and take the risk of arrest, and take the risk of whatever that meant. So I have a lot of respect for them."
Students said despite the arrests, they'll continue to press the issue.
"We know this licensing committee meeting this morning wouldn't have occurred if it wasn't for our sit-in, if it wasn't for our peaceful occupation for the past 16 days," Maglione said. "That came because of our pressure, and without this pressure this issue would be taken off the table and it would not be considered."