Correction Appended: This article gave the wrong year for RC sophomore Kate Barut.

The 12 students arrested Tuesday for refusing to leave University President Mary Sue Coleman's office are continuing to try to drum up student support.

The students, members of Students Organizing for Labor and Economic Equality's Sweatfree Campaign, plan to host a forum tonight at 8 p.m. in the Kalamazoo Room of the Michigan League to field student questions and explain their list of demands regarding the labor practices of University licensed apparel suppliers.

The students e-mailed Coleman inviting her to the forum and plan on setting aside a chair for her, SOLE member Aria Everts said.

Police arrested the students after they refused to end an eight-hour sit-in in Coleman's office in the Fleming Administration Building protesting the University's labor standards for companies supplying University-licensed apparel. SOLE contends that the current guidelines allow for sweatshop labor.

The students held "office hours" at a table near the posting wall in Mason Hall on Thursday and Friday. They plan to do so again today.

When students started pouring into the hallways between classes on Thursday and Friday, two SOLE members would put on sandwich boards that said "Ask me why I was arrested."

Most students passing the group's table have been supportive, but some have been confused about the campaign's goals, said RC sophomore Kate Barut. Some students incorrectly thought SOLE was organizing a boycott of University apparel, Everts said.

SOLE member Blase Kearney said such a boycott would be counterproductive.

"If people stop buying clothing made in sweatshops, that's removing the demand for these people to work," he said. "A boycott hurts sweatshop workers."

The group's main demand is that the University adopt the Designated Suppliers Program, a monitoring system that requires all workers to be paid enough money to support themselves and their family by working 48 hours a week and that all workers have access to union representation. The program also includes regular inspections by the Worker Rights Consortium, the nonprofit organization that developed the DSP.

The University currently monitors the labor practices of its apparel suppliers through its Vendor Code of Conduct.

In September of 2005, Coleman charged the Advisory Committee on Labor Standards and Human Rights with examining the Vendor Code of Conduct and the Designated Suppliers Program.

In May of 2006, Coleman accepted the committee's recommendation not to adopt the program, mainly over concerns over the feasibility of enforcing the program.

In her letter accepting the recommendations, Coleman asked the committee to develop proposals to strengthen the Vendor Code of Conduct and to continue to monitor the Designated Suppliers Program.

Next week will be a critical time for the student campaign. The final scheduled committee meeting is on April 16 from 8:30 to 10 a.m. in the School of Education Building. The committee's year-end report is due to Coleman on April 20.

Committee Chair Lawrence Root said the committee members are aware of last Tuesday's sit-in.

"I don't know how it might affect the decisions of individual members about this proposal," he said in an e-mail interview.

Root said because Coleman charged the committee with continuing to monitor changes to the Designated Suppliers Program, he expects the committee to vote on whether to change last April's recommendation.

Based on feedback from suppliers through a joint website that the University of Michigan has set up along with Ohio State University, the University of Southern California and the University of North Carolina, Root said the committee has also begun to focus on developing ways to make labor standards clearer for small and medium-sized suppliers. Root said he has found that smaller suppliers are more likely to be unsure about the University's policy.

Coleman has offered to meet with SOLE the day the report is released.

SOLE also plans to demonstrate during the Board of Regents meeting on April 19, Everts said.