A 78-year-old retired college professor found herself in handcuffs after refusing to get out of the way of a food delivery robot on a Philadelphia sidewalk. Now, she’s defending her unusual protest and insisting she has more rights than the machine.
Carolyn Marvin, a former communications professor at the University of Pennsylvania, was arrested Oct. 14 after deliberately blocking an Uber Eats delivery robot near the city’s busy Reading Terminal Market.
According to Philadelphia police, officers responded to the 1200 block of Filbert Street around 1:16 p.m. following a report of criminal mischief involving the robot. When they arrived, Marvin allegedly refused repeated commands to move and allow the machine to continue its delivery.
The confrontation, which was captured on video, ended with Marvin being arrested and issued a citation for disorderly conduct.
But the outspoken retiree insists she was simply exercising her constitutional rights.
“I was under the impression that I had more rights than the robot did,” Marvin told CNN, explaining that she believed stopping a machine was different from obstructing another person.
As it turns out, this wasn’t her first confrontation with Philadelphia’s growing fleet of robotic delivery workers. Marvin admitted she has spent months deliberately standing in their paths, sometimes delaying deliveries for 10 to 15 minutes.
She says the protests are intended to draw attention to companies replacing human delivery workers, potential safety hazards on crowded sidewalks and privacy concerns involving cameras installed on the machines.
The controversy has also exposed an unusual legal wrinkle. Under a Pennsylvania law passed in 2020, autonomous delivery robots are classified as pedestrians and granted certain protections. However, the machines are still required to yield to human pedestrians and cyclists in pedestrian areas.
Marvin believes her actions are protected by the First Amendment and reportedly intends to challenge her disorderly conduct citation.
She has also attracted attention for an earlier confrontation along Broad Street in September. One witness told local station 6abc that she initially thought a robot had struck Marvin, only to learn the professor was intentionally preventing it from moving.
Despite her arrest, Marvin has made it clear that she has no intention of abandoning her one-woman campaign against automated deliveries.
Asked whether she would continue protesting, she told 6abc, “I do. Why not?”
The unusual case has sparked a larger debate about the future of America’s sidewalks, the spread of automation and how far someone can go when protesting technology in public spaces.
