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Slashed spending
Assault to be discussed at forum
$660,000
By Casey Darnell
$620,000
Syracuse University’s Student Association and the Student AfricanAmerican Society will host a forum at 6:30 p.m. Monday in Hendricks Chapel to address concerns about the assault of three students along Ackerman Avenue on Feb. 9. A statement that began circulating among students on social media this weekend accuses SU’s Department of the Public Safety and the Syracuse Police Department of mishandling the assault. The statement, signed by “students, faculty and allies of those affected,” demanded the university issue a written apology to students and that Chancellor Kent Syverud attend the Monday forum. An earlier statement that circulated on social media last week also accused SPD and DPS of mishandling the assault. The authors of the second statement demanded that SU provide a written statement apologizing for “consistent negligence” toward students of color and recognize that the assault was a hate crime. The authors also demanded that SU state a “clear, transparent, and honest plan” to ad-dress discrimination of marginalized students on campus. SA President Ghufran Salih, in an interview with The Daily Orange, said the students’ demands are “doable” and the university should address the concerns about transparency. “These students don’t feel safe on this campus anymore,” she said. “There has been no proper reassurance not only to these students, but to students of color in general on campus.” Salih said SA has invited Syverud to attend the forum, but the chancellor had not responded as of Sunday evening. DPS Chief Bobby Maldonado, Dean of Student Affairs Rob Hradsky and Interim Chief Diversity Officer Keith Alford will be at the forum, Salih said. The second statement, which spread this weekend, details the assault in a chronological order. The assault occurred at the end of a birthday gathering at about 12:40 a.m. on Feb. 9, according to the statement. Ten students remained on the downstairs floor of the house when they heard loud noises on the porch, per the statement. Caleb Obiagwu, a junior in the College of Engineering and Computer Science, was one of the three students attacked at the party, he said in
$540,000
see assault page 4
Syracuse women’s basketball defeated Wake Forest, 77-57, but its frontcourt struggled to hold its own against the Demon Deacons on Sunday in the Carrier Dome. Page 12
Pride Union’s Drag Show Finals will be on Feb. 28. Performing in drag offers contestants the opportunity to express themselves in ways no other art form can. Page 7
SU’s Student Association is beginning work on initiatives to make textbooks more affordable, saying costs could be a barrier for low-income students. Page 3
Wake Forest University
Vanderbilt University
University of Notre Dame University of Southern California
University of Miami
New York University
Cornell University
University of Connecticut
Tulane University
Tufts University
University of Dayton
$140,000 $100,000
The George Washington University
$220,000 $180,000
Southern Methodist University
$260,000
Northeastern University
$300,000
Lehigh University
$340,000
Marquette University
$420,000 $380,000
Georgetown University
$460,000
Brandeis University
$500,000
Boston University
$580,000
Syracuse University
Across colleges Spending on lobbying across SU’s peer institutions in 2018
Penn State University
Northwestern University
SU has drastically reduced its lobbying expenditures in recent years
Boston College
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ackerman avenue assault
dailyorange.com
county
Food bank to feed families over break By Colleen Ferguson senior staff writer
The Food Bank of Central New York is preparing for an increase in hungry families to feed through its firstever school break box program this week, after families had to stretch their February food benefits during the government shutdown. Nearly 3 million people across the state receive Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program benefits, according to the United States Department of Agriculture. New York state issued SNAP benefits early last month during the government shutdown.
$290,000
I believe that we have not even begun to see the impact of this SNAP crisis in New York.
$270,000
Sherry Tomasky
$250,000
public affairs director for hunger solutions new york
$60,000 $20,000
$230,000 $210,000
Monitoring money
$190,000
SU’s spending on federal lobbying since 2008
$170,000 $150,000 $130,000 $110,000 $90,000 $70,000 $50,000 $30,000 $10,000 2008
2009
2010
2011
2012
By Kennedy Rose news editor
S
yracuse University spent only $10,000 on federal lobbying in 2018, records show. It was the lowest amount of money the university has spent on lobbying in 20 years. The drop follows a trend in SU’s spending on federal lobbying in recent years. The university spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in 2015, but that spending fell below $100,000 for the first time in 2017. The university’s lobbying expenditures dropped 75 percent in just one year, from $40,000 to $10,000, records show. And over the last 10 years, those expenditures dropped more than 96 percent, down from $270,000 in 2008.
2013
2014
2015
2016
2017
2018
SU spent less than $5,000 for the first three quarters of 2018, and declared $10,000 in spending for the fourth quarter, according to records in a United States Senate database and a U.S. House of Representatives database.
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Compared to its peer institutions, SU spent the least on lobbying in 2018 — excluding Brandeis University and The George Washington University, which spent nothing on lobbying last year. Northwestern University spent the most in 2018, totaling more than $660,000 in federal lobbying expenditures. Wake Forest University followed close behind, with $600,000 in spending for 2018, federal records show. see lobbying page 4
A winter storm swept across the state the third week in January, just as February’s benefits were delivered, and Syracuse-area schools will start winter recess this week. As a result, people could be going to grocery stores in larger numbers, resulting in food insecure families using their benefits earlier, Sherry Tomasky, public affairs director for Hunger Solutions New York, said. The Food Bank will provide extra food through the boxes, which aim to meet the needs of children not getting school meals during breaks, Advocacy Resource Manager Becky Lare said. The boxes will be available to the Food Bank’s partner agencies. More than 180,000 people in the greater Syracuse area are considered food insecure. Members of local hunger advocacy groups said the food insecure population in Syracuse, and beyond, will feel the effects of the shutdown for weeks to come. Households will inevitably burn through their early benefit very quickly, Tomasky said. On average, throughout the Food Bank’s network, people reported that their benefits last them less than two and a half weeks, Lare said. The early funds in New York weren’t a bonus or increased allotment for beneficiaries of the federal nutrition program. Instead, recipients got their food stamps two to four weeks before their usual arrival, see food
bank page 4