Despite Arrests, U-Va. Students Devoted to Bettering Workers

"They want to participate," said Johnson, who quit a job as a medical records clerk at the university because she did not make enough to live on. "But they're afraid of losing their little bit of a job."

In Charlottesville, where an estimated 1 in 4 working adults lives in poverty, the campaign for a living wage has energized student protesters in a way other issues have not.

"Many of these students feel a great desire to do something tangible," said Grace Hale, a history professor who teaches a class on Charlottesville's poverty. "Whatever they feel about the war in Iraq, they don't feel like they can do anything about it. They really feel they can do something on this issue."

The 17 arrested students are among the university's brightest, according to school officials. One is a prestigious Jefferson Scholar with a full scholarship.

They came to their sit-in dressed as if for a job interview. The seven male students wore ties and jackets; the women were in pressed slacks and tailored blouses.

They were armed with food, sleeping bags, cellphones and laptop computers to keep up with class assignments. But on the second day, the school severed wireless Internet access.

Tensions flared briefly. Police arrested anthropology teacher Wende Marshall for trespassing when she entered Madison Hall to visit the students. On Friday night, hundreds of supporters encircled the building and joined hands amid rumors of imminent arrests.

After midnight, Casteen showed up to negotiate an end to the sit-in. He offered to join the students in lobbying the General Assembly for living-wage legislation, according to a transcript of a tape the university provided to the student paper, the Cavalier Daily.

The son of a shipyard worker from Portsmouth, Va., Casteen is sympathetic to the cause of a living wage, Wood said. But after negotiations ended in a stalemate, Casteen reluctantly ordered the students arrested, she said.

The cases are now in the hands of the commonwealth's attorney. The university cannot drop the charges, Wood said. Trespassing carries up to a $2,500 fine and a year in jail, although no one expects the punishment to be that harsh.

The arrests have left a bitter feeling on this generally apolitical campus.

"These are students who have learned it's not just about grades and graduate school, it's about the real world," said Susan Fraiman, an English literature professor who supports the students. "The idea of punishing them rather than admiring them is wrongheaded."

The sentiment appears to be spreading. A jogger running past Madison Hall yesterday morning shouted out, "What do we want?" A man sitting on a bench shouted back, "A living wage."

Kinzie reported from Washington.