From the South Florida Sun-Sentinel

Best Rebels With a Cause

October 18 2006

Students Toward a New Democracy (S.T.A.N.D.)

The notion that college-age people are too absorbed in crafting their MySpace profiles to care about the world at large was dispelled earlier this year when 18 University of Miami students protested on behalf of striking janitors at the Coral Gables campus. Armed with the righteous indignation of seeing a rich school like UM pay poverty-level wages to some of its full-time employees, the students formed S.T.A.N.D. and organized sit-ins, marches and hunger strikes that supported the janitors' right to form a union. "We know that the right to organize is a human right; it is a civil right. That human right is being violated consistently and systematically on this campus," read an April missive on the group's Web site. The students were on the side of the victors when UM President Donna Shalala finally cried uncle and agreed to provide raises and health benefits for the janitors. S.T.A.N.D. members were punished for their troubles, however, when the school charged them with disorderly conduct for the sit-in that blocked a campus building. Still, the students remain in school, and S.T.A.N.D. still stands strong after the university backed down.