DePaulia
The
2017 Pacemaker Award Winner
Volume #102 | Issue #23 | April 23, 2018 | depauliaonline.com
Student Government elections rife with drama By Jonathan Ballew News Editor
Student Government Association (SGA) elections are in full swing and after the first debate, the candidates have taken their positions and laid out their platforms. Voting opened at noon on Sunday and the polls will close this Thursday at 5:00 p.m. Jack Evans and Katy Bozich of the “We are DePaul” campaign have established themselves as the preferred candidates of current president Michael Lynch, with the pair earning his endorsement on Friday. Opposing candidates Josh Kaufman and Nick Darlington, of the “DePaul for All - The Toilet Paper Party” campaign have ran a populist-style campaign. To them, poor quality toilet paper is a microcosm of larger issues as well as a common complaint they have heard from speaking with students. The DePaulia hosted debates between the presidential hopefuls on Thursday. Although the candidates were able to find common ground on many topics, they disagree on many fundamental campus issues. The election has not been without early drama — SGA’s Election Operations Board (EOB) held a hearing against Kaufman on Thursday evening. The KaufmanDarlington campaign was accused by the Evans-Bozich campaign of paying student canvassers. Candidates are given a limit of $1,000 to spend on their campaign and Kaufman planned on dipping into that fund in order to finance paid canvassers. The key piece of evidence against Kaufman came
See SGA, page 8
JONATHAN BALLEW | THE DEPAULIA
DePaul students going Chicago Public Safety (CPS) pupils in walking out of classes to protest gun violence across the city.
UNITED FRONT
Students across the city protest gun violence in South Side march By William Sullivan Contributing Writer
DePaul students from a variety of political and activist groups on campus joined high school students in a surprise march on the South Side on April 20. Friday was the 19th anniversary of the Columbine massacre. In remembrance of the 1999 school shooting that left 13 dead, students nationwide staged school walkouts to protest gun violence and demand reforms. There were many Chicago-area
students who convened in Grant Park, but the DePaul students traveled to Hyde Park, where they assisted, along with South Side community activists and University of Chicago students, a planned march from Kenwood Academy High School to the University of Chicago Hospitals. The march was organized by Kenwood students who are members of a group called Good Kids Mad City. The group is composed of “Black and Brown young people united in fighting to end violence in our cities,” according to their Twitter bio. Good Kids Mad City is a part of Communities United, a Chicago-based grassroots community organization that
focuses on issues of injustice. Tonii Magiit helped organize the walkout with Good Kids Mad City and hopes the protest will help to bring further awareness about gun violence in Chicago. “We connected with students in Baltimore, so we started this movement called Good Kids Mad City to talk about the lives that we lose every day here in Chicago, but they don’t get national attention,” Magiit said. DePaul doesn’t have many Friday classes for students to walk out of, but students still met in the Lincoln Park Quad at 10:30 a.m. to show solidarity with
See WALKOUT, page 6
City proposes new labor standards By Megan Stringer Contributing Writer
SHELLY RUZICKA | ARISE CHICAGO
Arise Chicago, a group of labor activists, has been at the forefront of passing Chicago’s minimum wage ordinance.
Working college students look to Chicago’s minimum wage ordinance not only to ensure they’re making the legal minimum, but that the minimum can be raised as they continue working — it’s supposed to reach $13 an hour by 2019 from the $11 an hour it’s at now. However, lenient enforcement of this ordinance and others created to protect workers’ rights has left violating the law an almost consequence-free offense in the past few years. To this effect, data obtained by the Chicago Reporter shows that 75.3 percent of minimum wage complaints were
not investigated between July 2015 and December 2016. This is likely because when the minimum wage and other ordinances were passed, enforcement power was given to the city’s Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP) department — but without allocating extra funding and staff to do so, according to Adam Kader, Worker Center Director at Arise Chicago. However, a new ordinance introduced at City Hall on Wednesday could change that. The proposed Office of Labor Standards Ordinance would create an office within BACP specifically dedicated to enforcing the city’s laws on minimum wage, wage theft and paid sick days — all
See LABOR, page 7