Despite the UT administration’s decision to sign-on with the Worker’s Rights Consortium (WRC), criminal charges are still being brought against 18 members of the Make UT sweat-Free Coalition who participated in a sit-in at President Powers’ office last April to advocate for the WRC.

According to Lucian Villaseñor, a student who was arrested during the sit-in, charges have not been dropped and plea deals were offered a few days before Powers announced the University would be joining the WRC.

“They are still coming down on us,” Villaseñor said.

The Make UT Sweat-Free Coalition has been advocating for the University to join the WRC for over nine years. The group was unsatisfied with the Fair Labor Association (FLA), the company that monitored the factories making UT apparel, because of perceived bias on the FLA board.

The coalition staged several protests and a sit-in at President Powers’ office during the spring semester. The sit-in resulted in the arrest of 18 members of the Make UT Sweat-Free Coalition.

“It took 18 of us getting arrested before they let us in the door to have conversations,” Villaseñor said.
Powers announced in July that the University would sign-on with the WRC, but also keeps its ties to the FLA.

The students who were arrested have been offered two different plea deals, but according to Villaseñor, they want the charges to be dropped because they would affect their future activism efforts.

One deal would require the students to plead guilty to criminal trespassing, a class B misdemeanor. With this deal, the students would plead guilty to the charges and be required to complete 20 hours of community service. They would have to not be arrested for any other crime for six months. After the six months, the students could apply to have the charges expunged from their record.

The second deal would require the students to face a charge of failure to obey a lawful officer. Students would have to complete 15 hours of community service and pay all court fees, which amounts to about $100 each. They would have to remain jail free for three months for the case to be dismissed. They could apply for their record to be expunged after two years.

The main problem with the plea deals, according to Villaseñor, is that the three or six months the students cannot get into any trouble with the law would limit the activism they are able to perform on campus to advocate for other “struggles.”

“They are basically putting a gag order on us,” Villaseñor said.

An online petition urging the University to drop the charges has received about 175 signatures from students, faculty and alumni.

UT spokesperson Tara Doolittle says that the decision to continue with criminal charges is not up to the University, but the Travis County Attorney’s Office.

“We are not going to get involved with the legal process,” Doolittle said.

Three separate messages were left for David Escamilla, the Travis County Attorney, but a response was not received before press time. According to court dockets, several of the students have a court date set for Sept. 14.