A dozen Rutgers student activists have a February court date to face disorderly persons charges after participating in a 2017 protest at a Rutgers Board of Trustees meeting.

The students are part of an advocacy group that has been pressuring Rutgers to adopt a $15 minimum wage.

“We certainly don’t think the way for the university to handle a student protest is through police action and criminal charges,” said Ira W. Mintz, of the Somerset firm Weissman & Mintz, who is defending 11 of the 12 students. It’s not known if the last student has a lawyer.

Each student faces three charges – a disorderly persons offense and two petty disorderly persons offenses – according to the complaint summonses. The students are scheduled to appear in New Brunswick municipal court on Feb. 4. They have already completed university disciplinary requirements.

On Dec. 12, 2017, during a Board of Trustees meeting at Trayes Hall in the Douglass Student Center, members of Rutgers United Students Against Sweatshops interrupted the meeting just as it was starting, according to video posted online.

The group was there to urge Rutgers President Robert Barchi to raise the minimum wage for all campus workers to $15 an hour, which they had been advocating for two years. The trustees meeting came on the heels of Barchi's announcement that he would raise the minimum wage from $8.44 to $11 for campus student workers starting in 2018.

Footage of the meeting shows the students singing, "Solidarity forever for the union makes us strong," as they crossed a rope barrier and stepped past a line of Rutgers University police officers.

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The students were "making physical contact with officers to congregate in the center" of the meeting hall "while shouting, resulting in the meeting's adjournment due to disruptive behavior," according to the complaint summons.

The video shows the meeting ended nearly 15 minutes after the protest began, with the trustees having not addressed anything on the agenda.

The summons states that the students were advised not to cross the police line and rope barrier but did so anyway “for the purpose of disrupting a Rutgers Board of Trustees meeting.”

A university spokesperson confirmed the event and charges.

“This is a matter of a student protest for a $15 minimum wage. It shouldn’t be resolved in the courts,” Mintz said.

Faculty union representatives are calling for supporters of the union to pressure Barchi to have the charges dropped, although the charges were filed by the university police department.

“We are writing to you to ask Barchi to drop these charges immediately,” reads a recentemail from union leaders. “The students who participated in civil disobedience at a December 2017 Board of Trustees meeting were acting in the best traditions of Rutgers.”

The students' effort to raise the minimum wage to $15 mirrors a statewide goal of Gov. Phil Murphy. Legislation aligned with that effort stalled at the end of 2018 over lawmakers' disagreement on the implementation of the raise and hikes for farm and seasonal employees.

Students want Barchi to implement the $15 minimum wage at Rutgers for all of its employees, arguing they need the raise now to help cover the cost of living, tuition and books.

Email: carrera@northjersey.com