INDEPENDENT SINCE 1880
The Corne¬ Daily Sun Vol. 134, No. 74
THURSDAY, APRIL 12, 2018
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ITHACA, NEW YORK
16 Pages – Free
ASSEMBLY IN CRISIS
S.A. presidential race unclear with committee and reviewer at odds
Citing 4 instances of ‘bias,’ counselor urges reversal
By NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS and YUICHIRO KAKUTANI
The Cornell judicial codes counselor found four instances in which she said the Student Assembly Elections Committee applied election rules in a biased manner when disqualifying Varun Devatha ’19 from the S.A. presidential race, and she told The Sun on Wednesday night that the decision should be overturned. The committee’s actions “are invalid and against the very basic tenets of ethics,” the judicial codes c o u n s e l o r,
Sun City Editor and Sun News Editor
The Student Assembly Elections Committee on Wednesday upheld its disqualification of a presidential candidate for a meme and declared Dale Barbaria ’19 the next S.A. president, but a report from the judicial codes counselor put the election results in doubt early on Thursday morning. The elections committee, led by Travis Cabbell ’18, maintained that it had correctly disqualified Varun Devatha ’19, the only other candidate for the top S.A. spot, last month based on a social post by one of his supporters that encouraged students to vote for Devatha and included a Cornell logo, which the committee said violated election rules. See COMMITTEE page 4
By NICHOLAS BOGELBURROUGHS and YUICHIRO KAKUTANI Sun City Editor and News Editor
Kendall Karr, a Cornell Law student, said in a fiery statement to The Sun late on Wednesday night. Karr’s conclusion that
to send the assembly into a crisis. The situation on Thursday morning, in which two entities have
“[Decision is] invalid and against ... basic tenets of ethics.” Kendall Karr Devatha should be reinstated and that she — and not the elections committee — has the final authority to determine whether or not the committee’s disqualification of Devatha should be overturned called Wednesday night’s initial results into question and has the potential
come to opposite conclusions about Devatha’s disqualification and each believe that they have final authority, had some current S.A. members concerned about what will happen next. Earlier on Wed-
nesday night, the 10-member elections committee, led by non-voting chair Travis Cabbell ’18, upheld its March 28 disqualification of Devatha, declaring Dale Barbaria ’19 the winner by default. The committee disqualified Devatha because it determined that a meme posted by a supporter of Devatha’s candidacy — who may have also been a member of his campaign — should disqualify him from the race because it included the Cornell logo in violation of election See REPORT page 4
BORIS TSANG / SUN ASSISTANT PHOTOGRAPHY EDITOR
What’s next? | It is unclear whether Varun Devatha ’19 (center) or Dale Barbaria ’19 (second from right) will be the next S.A. president.
CABBELL ’18
Arrests Made in Collegetown Assault of Student Who Says He Was Called a Racial Slur By NICHOLAS BOGEL-BURROUGHS Sun City Editor
Cornell Police have arrested two men and accused them of taking part in an assault in Collegetown last month, claiming that one of the men used slurs to harass a black student and then assaulted him. Cornell Police arrested Zachary R. Boothroyd, 22, of Dryden, and George W. Booker Jr., 22, of Groton. Police charged Boothroyd with three counts of third-degree assault, a misdemeanor, and Booker with one count of third-degree assault. Both were arraigned on Monday and released without bail. Neither appear to be Cornell students. In public documents filed by Cornell
Police in Ithaca City Court, Investigator Charles Alridge said Booker punched a student in the head, causing him to fall onto the concrete sidewalk unconscious near the taco truck on Eddy Street at about 1 a.m. on March 10. The assault occurred on the same street where a black student was assaulted in September in what prosecutors have charged as a hate crime. Tompkins County District Attorney Matthew Van Houten charged John Greenwood ’20 with hate crime attempted assault in that case, which is ongoing. Greenwood has pleaded not guilty. The victim in the March assault told police that he went out with friends on March 9 and later walked to the taco truck
near the corner of Eddy Street and Dryden Road for food. He said he remembers a white man standing near the taco truck who matched subsequent police descriptions of the suspect, but that his memory is “blurry” following the head injury he incurred during the assault. In the documents, a Cornell employee who witnessed the incident said a man who was in line at the taco truck was acting rowdy. The employee said the rowdy man and the victim “had a brief interaction” and then the man knocked the victim to the ground before pushing several other people waiting in line, including a woman who police said broke her ankle. “After I helped [the victim] up, the man
who had knocked him down became very confrontational and started shouting something along the lines of, ‘Let’s go nigger’ and ‘You got a problem nigger?’” the employee said in a statement to police. The employee said the victim asked the man to stop using the slur, and the man again knocked the victim down. The employee said he intervened and tried to diffuse the situation, but was also punched in the face, causing him to start bleeding from the lip. When he said he was going to call police, the man and about three friends left, heading down Eddy Street, the employee said. See ASSAULT page 14