In Manhattan on June 11, 2013, federal district court judge William Pauly ruled that Fox Searchlight Studios violated fair labor laws when the production studio did not compensate two of its unpaid interns for their work on the 2010 film “Black Swan.” This decision has led to a slew of lawsuits from unpaid interns to claim compensation for their work.

Unpaid internships are offered by employers and must adhere to six requirements set forth by the Fair Labor Standards Act in order to be deemed legal.

According to the Department of Labor website, “the internship, even though it includes actual operation of the facilities of the employer, is similar to training which would be given in an educational environment. The internship experience is for the benefit of the intern. The intern does not displace regular employees, but works under close supervision of existing staff. The employer that provides the training derives no immediate advantage from the activities of the intern; and on occasion its operations may actually be impeded. The intern is not necessarily entitled to a job at the conclusion of the internship. The employer and the intern understand that the intern is not entitled to wages for the time spent in the internship.”

“Making sure we’re following the fair labor standards, that’s really our big push when it comes to unpaid internships,” said UNC Wilmington’s career center assistant director for employer relations Mike Phillips.

“We have someone who does a review of organizations,” Phillips said. “We ask them what are the goals and learning outcome of the internship.”

“I’m not going to send an intern to a sweatshop,” said UNCW English and journalism internship coordinator Shirley Matthews. “If they use an intern as they would use an employee, instead of using an employee…they shouldn’t do that.”

Colleges promote internships through different career and department services. At UNCW, students can find unpaid internships by logging into Seawork, the university’s online resume and job posting system.

Students at other universities such as New York University have protested against their career center’s posting of illegal unpaid internships. Last year, sophomore Christina Isnardi collected over 1,000 students’ signatures pushing for a ban of these postings.

“At NYU, they can afford to be a little hard-nosed. They are in area with 10 million people. We’re in an area with 100,000,” said Matthews.

According to a survey conducted on the graduating class of 2012 by the National Association of College and Employers website, “overall, 37 percent of unpaid interns received job offers; 36 percent of graduates with no internship experience received job offers.”

This means that only one more percent of students that completed unpaid internships were offered jobs compared to those that had not completed any internship.

However, some students disagree and believe that unpaid internships are beneficial, especially for desired career path.

UNCW athletic communications intern Chad Darrah said, “I didn’t have any of the skills that I got from the internships before I got there, so what would I be bringing to them?”

“You need experience somewhere,” Matthews said. “If you have zero professional experience once you graduate college, you’re not getting the job you want.”

Deena Patel, a senior communication studies major who completed an internship with News 14 Carolina said that, while she learned a lot, “there were a lot of times when there was downtime work, when they were doing their own packages and there wasn’t really much I could do to assist with that.”

Over half of the internships provided for college students are unpaid, according to a survey by Intern Bridge 2012. According to the Fair Labor and Standards Act, if the internship in not entirely for the benefit of the intern, it is classified as unpaid work and the intern is required to be compensated minimum wage.

“In an internship, you’re supposed to be learning and if you’re not in a position where someone is actually mentoring you and teaching you something, if they just simply say here’s the job and dump a lot of stuff on your desk and then run away and you’re supposed to do it, that’s regular full-time employment. That’s not an internship,” said Matthews.

Matthews said there was a single instance where the company was taking advantage of intern’s work. After she had proceeded to warn students that the company was doing this she had one student who still wanted to participate.

“Half way through the internship, they came back sobbing and that’s when we had to kind of retool this,” said Matthews.

Whether an intern will be paid or not is largely based on the field of study said Phillips.

“This is mainly going to affect students in the arts and humanities. If we’re going to take this away, we’re going to take away opportunities from students from some of our biggest majors,” said Phillips. “But on the flip side you see students in the business administration or computer science field that expect to get paid for their internship.”

Similar to many other universities, UNCW offers course credit to supplement the completion of an internship. Some states such as California require course credit be offered in order for unpaid internships to be legal.

Likewise, on Dec. 4, the provincial government of Ontario, Canada passed legislation to enforce stricter laws on companies that employee unpaid internships. The new legislation requires unpaid interns to follow the same guidelines as regular employees with more surprise inspections at unpaid internships.

Ross Perlin, author of Intern Nation, writes that internships have devolved from apprenticeship-like training originating at the end of WWII to, now, costly meaningless tasks with no job prospects.

“Since 2008, rising college tuition, record levels of student debt and high levels of youth unemployment have exacerbated the dismal prospects for unpaid internships,” said Perlin. “Unpaid internships have become a straw that breaks the camel’s back for many people.”

Matthews believes, however, that while there is discontent among some students about unpaid internships, students should still pursue them.

“Students ask: so how do you get experience? Well sometimes you got to give it away. Bite the bullet, go do something that will teach you a job skill and just do it,” said Matthews.