"I must forewarn the reader, this is yet another column about the Living Wage Campaign. But before you skip to sudoku, I say in my own defense that this column says nothing about the figure $10.72, economics or conceptions of social justice.It deals instead with a simple claim made by the University administration: that they lack the legal authority to institute a living wage for all University employees by nature of their status as a public university beholden to the will of the state. This argument is mere legal babble, a smokescreen set up by the administration to forestall substantive debate on the issue until pressure on it dies down. If the University, has no intention of working towards a "living wage" or debating the issue, it should say so outright rather than attempting to hide behind flimsy legal reasoning and an absurd charade of helplessness.

In an April 20 letter to the community, University President John Casteen contended, "the State Code places the Rector and Visitors, the corporate entity of the University, under the direct 'control' of the General Assembly." This implies that the Board of Visitors cannot act to change the pay rates of workers employed directly by the University without an express grant from the General Assembly.

The extent of this "control," however, is vague. In the same advisory opinion written by Virginia Deputy Attorney General David Johnson that Casteen cited, it says that the Board of Visitors is able to "make such regulations as they may deem expedient, not being contrary to law." It is quite a stretch to say that requiring an express grant of power to act and simply being unable to do things that are prohibited constitute the same thing.

University spokesperson Carol Wood explained, "There are 'state pay practices' that allow an institution to implement salary increases from sources other than … state dollars," but it is by no means clear that those practices are as limited as the administration has contended. While the Board of Visitors must have its requests for public monies approved by the General Assembly, that money only accounts for 8.1 percent of the University's operating budget, according to the University's web site. As History Prof. Jeffrey Rossman pointed out at rally two weeks ago, the University didn't have to and didn't ask the General Assembly if it could build a new basketball stadium or do a host of other things it does with its own money. The same logic applies to direct employees. While it remains unclear what the best strategy for payinga "living wage" might be, it is reasonable to believe that the University needs no express grant from the General Assembly to do so.

The Virginia Supreme Court has held that "in questions of implied power, the answer is to be found in legislative intent." The General Assembly has on multiple occasions struck down bills that would have banned public bodies from enacting a living wage. Commenting on the defeat of Senate Bill 428, the only of these bills to reach the Senate Floor, Sen. Louise Lucas, D-Portsmouth) quipped, "When we intervene here, we're interfering in a matter in which our help is neither needed nor wanted." Since the defeat of this legislation allowed existing living wage ordinances to stand, it is clear that the General Assembly has no intention of limiting this practice.

With regard to the issue of contracted employees, the Virginia Public Procurement Act states, "Public bodies may consider best value concepts when procuring … nonprofessional services." This means that the University may consider other factors besides price when choosing its contracts if doing so increases the quality of the services. Using this "best value" formulation, the City of Alexandria concluded that its living wage ordinance had been a "success" because it resulted in contractors "recruit[ing] and retain[ing] a higher quality and dependable workforce," according to Alexandria City Councilman Ludwig Gaines. Charlottesville has done likewise. While many of the living wage activists have approached the issue wholly from a moral perspective, it would be more than reasonable for the University to adopt a living wage using this "best value" approach. Legally speaking, the added bonus of fulfilling a moral imperative is largely irrelevant and would not make the University open to lawsuits from contractors.

The arguments for and against a "living wage" remain plentiful and unresolved. But if any actual debate is to take place, the University must stop insisting that it is powerless to act when the law clearly says otherwise." (A.J. Kornblith, Cavalier Daily, April 24, 2006)