thursday, january 22, 2026
celebrating 122 years
free
O • ICE dangerous impunity
C • Public palette
S • Finally Home
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As ICE agents face little accountability for violent abuses, our columnist argues public apathy is immoral and dangerous.
Syracuse University’s public art on campus, a collection of 27 statues and murals, represents its rich art history.
Dominique Darius barely played in four seasons at UCLA and USC. After transferring to Syracuse, she’s finally a star.
Crisis deepened, progress stalled
lars jendruschewitz senior staff photographer | avery magee photo editor | zabdyl koffa staff photographer | ilana zahavy presentation director
County Democrats struggle to respond to evictions and soaring rent
By Cooper Andrews senior staff writer
S
ince his election to the Onondaga County Legislature in November 2023, Maurice “Mo” Brown feels nauseous when observing the toll the Syracuse housing crisis has left on the communities he represents. The 33-year-old gets a pit in his stomach when he questions if he’s doing enough to curb the issue. He rarely feels like he is.
“Having secure housing is a human right. Fundamentally, it’s just so hard to focus on literally anything else if you don’t know where you’re going to be sleeping tonight,” Brown said. “We subject so many of our children to that.” It’s not hard for Brown to assess the crisis himself. Brown grew up in Section 8 housing in the Bronx, and the realities he sees in Syracuse today mirror his own backstory. He grew accustomed to abusive landlords, went days at a time without hot water and had to couch-surf a few times, too. see housing page 4
university senate
SU seeks ‘new start’ with GSO instead of mediation plan By Griffin Uribe Brown and Samantha Olander the daily orange
Syracuse University will not pursue mediation with current or former Graduate Student Organization officers, Vice Chancellor and Provost Lois Agnew said at January’s University Senate meeting. Instead, they will develop a new model for graduate student representation.
In December, the senate overwhelmingly passed a resolution to kickstart a “supervised process of mediation” between the Graduate School and GSO, which was deregistered by the university last summer. Agnew said the university is seeking a “new start” in graduate student support and will begin a process to consult with students across different programs and schools this semester.
“We need some kind of representative graduate student organization, but the question is what does that look like in this landscape?” Agnew said. “How do we make sure that all graduate students are represented?” In April, GSO declared itself an independent entity from the university, due to “increased oversight” from administrators. That summer, SU removed the body’s registered student organization status.
Today, GSO is no longer an RSO and lacks many past responsibilities, including distributing the student activity fee. At the December meeting, Peter Vanable, the dean of SU’s Graduate School, told senators GSO leadership was “explicitly cautioned against pursuing independence.” He said the Graduate School had been “very thoughtful” in executing GSO responsibilities before the switch.
Agnew said she and Chancellor Kent Syverud identified three main issues with the resolution: • Student officers and GSO are unhappy they are facing consequences for their actions, though those consequences were “clearly laid out” by administrators. • There is now no way to elect graduate student representa
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