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dailyorange.com theta tau
Quiet
Students file lawsuit against SU
leader
By Catherine Leffert, Jordan Muller and Sam Ogozalek the daily orange
How SU trustee Steven Barnes has influenced campus-wide change
Four anonymous, prospective members and one brother of Theta Tau on Tuesday filed a lawsuit against Syracuse University, specifically naming Chancellor Kent Syverud among other officials. They claimed the university rushed to label them as “criminals” in an attempt to “malign the students personally” to salvage SU’s reputation, court records show. The Daily Orange obtained and published videos last week showing people in Theta Tau’s house using racial slurs and miming the sexual assault of a person with disabilities. Chancellor Kent Syverud described the videos as, “extremely racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, sexist, and hostile to people with disabilities,” in a campus-wide email sent last Wednesday morning. In his email, Syverud announced the initial suspension of Theta Tau. The professional engineering fraternity was permanently expelled from
see lawsuit page 4
Story by Michael Burke
Illustration by Sarah Allam
senior staff writer
head illustrator
Editor’s note: This story is part of a series on the role of corporate influences in Syracuse University’s governance and campus politics, based on dozens of interviews with faculty, staff, students, university leadership, higher education experts and other outside experts. ric Spina was leaving out a key piece of information as he addressed the Syracuse University faculty and staff gathered in Hendricks Chapel. It was November 2013, and Spina, then SU’s provost and interim chancellor, was leading a forum about a university-wide assessment being administered in partnership with consulting firm Bain & Company. The assessment, Spina said, would culminate in a report containing “a set of facts and a deep knowledge base” that would be presented to Chancellor-designate Kent Syverud, serving as a crucial foundation to guide his decisions. Data was to be collected through budgetary analysis, interviews with campus leaders and surveys of faculty and staff. Further input would be provided from the assessment’s steering committee, which was a mix of faculty and administrators. Spina emphasized that the steering committee would play a leading role in the assessment. “It’s not really the Bain project,” he said. “That’s a clear message I want you to hear. This is the Syracuse University project that is being run by the steering committee.” What Spina didn’t mention was that there was another committee involved: the assessment’s executive committee, which was privy to
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more information than the steering committee and had authority over it. The executive committee consisted of Spina, four other upperadministrators, SU trustee John Riley and, notably, trustee Steven Barnes. Barnes is an executive at Bain Capital, the investment firm with close historical ties to Bain & Company. Bain Capital’s foundThe head of ers were a group of partners from the Board Bain & Company. Although Bain Capital and Bain & Company are of Trustees separate entities, some faculty works for Bain. said they perceive the intersection of the two at SU as a possible How is that conflict because of their historipossible? Bain’s cal similarities. policies are the Serving on the assessment’s executive committee was an ones that are early sign of the influence Barnes being pushed would have in guiding SU’s instiat Syracuse tutional planning under Syverud. A long-time donor to SU and a University. voting trustee since 2008, he was named chairman in 2015, makTula Goenka ing him the university’s highestprofessor of television, radio and film at su; ranking individual authority. It university senator gives him the responsibility of leading SU’s central governing body that has ultimate rule over the university. On Wednesday evening, Barnes sat in a first row pew inside Hendricks Chapel as SU community members — including Barnes — participated in a discussion about discrimination on campus in light of the Theta Tau videos.
see barnes page 6
theta tau
Officials address demands By Casey Darnell and Kennedy Rose the daily orange
As Chancellor Kent Syverud spoke on Wednesday evening in Hendricks Chapel, members of Recognize Us silently stood in aisles and pews, holding banners that read, “All Power to the Students” and “Everything Expressed Needs to be Addressed.” From the balcony of the chapel, a banner was hung that read, “RECOGNIZE US. RECLAIM OUR CAMPUS.” High-ranking Syracuse University administrators, deans and members of the Board of Trustees were present at the town hall in Hendricks to address student concerns following uproar over videos published by The Daily Orange that show people in the Theta Tau fraternity house using racial slurs and miming the sexual assault of a person with disabilities. About 300 students, faculty and staff attended the event, which lasted about one hour and 30 minutes and consisted of a wide-ranging
see hendricks page 4
N • Architecture forum
Michael Speaks, dean of the School of Architecture, has promised to hold monthly forums with students in the wake of the Theta Tau fraternity’s expulsion. Page 3
S • Facilitator
Who is Syracuse? see pages 8-9 Dreya Cherry
Diane Wiener
Despite being underrecruited in high school, Stephen Rehfuss leads Syracuse men’s lacrosse in points while running the offense from the X. Page 16