After a bus scheduled to take approximatley 45 students to Washington for Sunday's March for Women's Lives did not arrive, the Feminist Majority Leadership Alliance (FMLA) began working to prepare a cause of action against Bus Bank, the company contracted to send the transportation.Students said they were unable to attend the march because their bus, scheduled for a 2 a.m. pick-up, never arrived.

Those who remained at Brandeis showed their support for the March. The FMLA held a special meeting in the TV room at Shapiro Sunday to assemble and watch the rally on C-SPAN.

"A group of people who were on the bus met in the TV lounge in Shapiro and wrote letters as constituents to senators, and we were able to write 56 letters. So we were still able to have an impact," Papurt said.

FMLA supporter Tamara Fleischer '06 said while it was extremely unfortunate a group of students were unable to go to Washington, "we had more resolve to bring more awareness of issues of the march to campus."

Fleischer said people packed the Shapiro room to watch the March. She also said people tried hard to pretend they were at the march with posters supporting the cause.

"What I think is so beautiful about my experience about not going to the march, [is that] we were able to create such a positive experience out of a yucky situation," she said.

Samantha Papurt '04 said that on Friday afternoon, the Bus Bank, which contracts out to other bus companies, called and said they could not get one of their busses to campus until 2 a.m.

"We communicated with student events and lawyers down in DC and decided that this was a breach of contract," she said.

By 3 am on Sunday, students said they became worried because the bus had still not arrived.

"[Bus Bank] said they would try to get a bus there so we would be there by ten. But then they never showed up," Angela Marchant '07 said. It was very unclear. I was hearing two stories for a little while. The actual story is the bus company doesn't keep in contact with the courier after they shipped out the itinerary."

According to Marchant, this was not the first problem that the FMLA had had with Bus Bank in the days preceding the trip.

"About 10 days ago the guy I have been working with mostly throughout this whole thing e-mailed me and said that we could only have two buses, because one of the carriers had mechanical difficulties with the bus," Marchant said.

"We had to scramble and find another Greyhound and then about 36 hours later they told us that they couldn't have all of the buses at midnight."

FMLA is now working with the Leadership Alliance and with Brandeis Council to determine whether they can be refunded for their financial losses and compensated for punitive damages.

"[The representative from Bus Bank] was very sincere and very apologetic and willing to try to make things a little better," Marchant said. We are in the process of working out what they are going to do, and the company has responded by asking for ideas."

According to Marchant, the bus company contracts out from 125 locations, and Bus Bank admitted that this was worst error in communication that occurred all weekend.

A phone representative from Bus Bank did not return phone calls from the Justice as of press time.

"We have connections with the Feminist Majority and they have connections to lawyers who will represent us," Marchant said. "They, along with Alwina Bennett [assistant dean of Student Life], are going to try to help us get the money back. I would definitely like a refund for the money that we worked really hard to raise. It's really tough because we worked so hard and wanted to go so bad."

Marchant remains positive about the pending legal case and said there is a lawyer from the Feminist Majority foundation to represent them.