free
wednesday
oct. 22, 2014 high 54°, low 45°
t h e i n de p e n de n t s t u de n t n e w s pa p e r of s y r a c u s e , n e w yor k |
N • Living green
dailyorange.com
P • Love thy neighbor
Campus Sustainability Day is Wednesday and several SU organizations are preparing to mark it with activities and a documentary screening. Page 3
SU students are taking the initiative to help Livingston Avenue resident Lenora Monkemeyer, who has been living without water, heat or electricity for several years. Page 11
S • The long term
AJ Long is Syracuse’s starter, but it’s only because Terrel Hunt is out. If he performs well against Clemson and even leads SU to a win, he could start making the spot his own. Page 20
Boeheim lawsuit reinstated Case will now be heard again in lower court By Dylan Segelbaum staff writer
john tummino, a Remembrance Scholar, stands among 35 folding chairs set up on the Quad to represent the SU students who died in the Pan Am Flight 103 bombing. Tummino became a scholar to honor a family member who died in the bombing. margaret lin photo editor
Remembrance Week 2014 part 3 of 4
coming W full circle
By Ellen Meyers staff writer
Student honors family member who died in Pan Am Flight 103 bombing by becoming Remembrance Scholar
hen John Tummino arrived at the first meeting for this year’s Remembrance Scholars in August, he brought a Notre Dame hat that he got from his thirdcousin, Wendy Giebler-Sefcik. But, it was not just any hat. It was the hat that Giebler-Sefcik’s first husband, Jay Giebler, was wearing when terrorists bombed Pan Am Flight 103 on Dec. 21, 1988. It was the hat that was found near Giebler when authorities found his body among the wreckage in Lockerbie, Scotland. Bringing the hat to the Remembrance Scholars meeting stunned the whole group because none of the Scholars knew about the connection, said Tummino, a senior broadcast and digital journalism and political science dual major. As soon as he showed the scholars the hat, “all sound sucked out of the room, like we were in a vacuum,” he said. “It really served to ground us and say, ‘this is why we were here,’ because this hat traveled from that airplane to the ground and all the way and ended up here in Syracuse, and here we all are,” Tummino said. “It was almost a way to be like, ‘let’s remember who we’re doing this for.’” On Friday, Giebler-Sefcik, who Tummino calls his aunt, will come to SU for the first time for Remembrance Week, which is held each year at SU to honor the 35 students see rememberance page 5
New York state’s high court on Tuesday unanimously reversed two prior decisions throwing out a defamation lawsuit against Jim Boeheim, ruling his comments that two former Syracuse ball boys were lying about being sexually abused to get money were not opinions protected under free speech. In a 16-page decision, Judge Jenny Rivera wrote that at the early stages of the lawsuit when it was thrown out, Boeheim’s comments could have had a “defamatory connotation.” Thus, the court ruled former ball boys Bobby Davis and Mike Lang have a “reasonable” claim to recover damages for defamation. The case will now be sent back down to the lower trial court. The court’s decision was 6-0, with five other judges concurring with Rivera. Judge Eugene Pigott did not take part in the decision. Davis and Lang sued Boeheim, the head men’s basketball coach, and Syracuse University on Dec. 13, 2011, after he called the stepbrothers liars who were out to get money for alleging they were sexually abused by a former associate head men’s basketball coach. That former coach, Bernie Fine, was fired from SU on Nov. 27, 2011. He has denied all wrongdoing and was not charged following a yearlong federal investigation. A state Supreme Court justice on May 11, 2012, threw out the lawsuit, ruling that Boeheim’s comments were opinions protected under free speech. That decision was upheld 3-2 on Oct. 4, see lawsuit page 10