Thursday October 18, 2012 year: 132 No. 117
the student voice of
The Ohio State University
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thelantern Obama for America campaign paid $200K up front for visit
sports
emilY Tara Oller reporter tara.3@osu.edu When President Barack Obama visited the Oval on Ohio State’s campus Oct. 9, the Obama for America campaign had to pay the nearly $200,000 bill up front. Although the president was on campus and hosted by the OSU College Democrats, neither the university or the organization had to pay for the event. “Costs (for the event) are far out of any student organization’s price (budget),” said Mallory Kimble, president of OSU College Democrats, who requested that Obama visit campus. In an email to The Lantern, Amy Murray, assistant director of media relations at OSU, said the OFA campaign paid for the visit and, “the group (OFA) paid $97,000 to rent out the Oval and related costs such as parking. In
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Three Big Ten teams, including OSU, were ranked in the top-five in the USA Today top 25 poll.
addition, they also had to put down a $100,000 cash deposit for any damages and carry a significant insurance policy.” The insurance policy is returnable after a review process, Murray said. No final determination has been made as to whether the money will be refunded. Representatives from OFA did not return requests for spending and budgets regarding the president’s visit to the Oval. Although the OSU College Democrats did not pay for the event, Kimble said it was responsible for distributing fliers and advertising for the event Oct. 5. Murray explained OFA had to comply with typical university standards for hosting an event. According to the “Rules Governing the Use of Outdoor Space at The Ohio State University,” a registered student organization, faculty or staff member, university department or organization must sponsor an event. The OSU College Republicans also had a tent set up on the Oval prior to Obama’s speech. Niraj Antani, communications director of OSU College Republicans, said the group had a tent with “a small show of support for Gov. (Mitt) Romney and
andrew hOlleran/ Photo editor
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Debate illuminates immigration differences allY marOTTi Editor-in-chief marotti.5@osu.edu
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The human body up-close
‘Body Worlds & The Brain’ is scheduled to be on display Wednesday through Jan. 6 at COSI.
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Some political polls unreliable
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This is the ninth story of an 11-article series leading up to the Nov. 6 presidential election that will break down the issues dominating political debates. Check back next Thursday for our segment on women’s health. America is a land of immigrants — President Barack Obama and Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney have practically coined this as a campaign catch phrase. Obama says he has passed legislation that has helped immigrants in America, and Romney says he will be the one to sort out the immigration issue America is faced with. But Lilia Fernandez, professor in Ohio State’s Department of History
and the Latino Studies Program, says immigration is a complicated issue with no simple solution. “I don’t think anyone’s really going to seriously take up the issue of immigration reform because No. 1, it’s a really complicated issue, and No. 2, for political leaders, there’s not a lot of political gain,” Fernandez said. “The people who would benefit from the laws can’t vote themselves.” Between 12 million and 20 million undocumented immigrants live in the United States, and Fernandez said they have “everything to do with the economy and the direction the country is taking.” “Immigrants here in the U.S. and every country around the world ... tend to fit into the bottom of the labor market ... and they tend to do a lot of the manual service labor,” Fernandez said. American consumers want to buy
cheap things, and one way to keep low costs is to lower labor costs, or pay immigrant workers less, Fernandez said. Undocumented workers don’t have many rights and therefore won’t protest. This often overlooked influence unauthorized immigrants have on America’s economy, Fernandez said, is why simply deporting everyone without documentation “would have a really devastating impact on the economy.” According to Romney’s website, one of his strategies for solving the immigration problem is to encourage self-deportation. In the second presidential debate Tuesday night held at Hofstra University in New York, Romney said that was a stance that is often misconstrued. “We’re not gonna round up 12 million people, undocumented illegals, and take them out of the nation,”
Romney said. “Instead let people make their own choice.” Fernandez said the tight restrictions and quotas are what make getting into the country to work so hard for immigrants. “The people who are in the country today, who we call illegal, who we consider to be illegal immigrants, are coming to the U.S. in exactly the same way that people did a hundred years ago,” Fernandez said. “What’s happened is that our laws have changed and it’s become stricter.” Romney and Obama both said at the Tuesday debate that the immigration system needs to be fixed. According to Romney’s website, he plans to get rid of pointless requirements that delay temporary worker visas and speed up visa
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Basketball tickets to be loaded on BuckIDs allisOn slOnaKer Lantern reporter slonaker.15@osu.edu The Ohio State basketball team was named the No. 4 team in the country by the USA Today top 25 poll, and with the season right around the corner, it’s time for students to purchase their season tickets. However, student ticket-holders will only have to present their BuckIDs for entry to the games this year. Brett Scarborough, assistant athletic director, said that instead of students getting a voucher for tickets like last year, all purchased tickets are going to be loaded onto students’ BuckIDs. Scarborough said Undergraduate Student Government and The Buckeye Nuthouse, the OSU student men’s basketball cheering section, approached the athletic department asking for an easier way for students to pick up their tickets. With this change, students are not required to go to the Schottenstein Center to pick up their ticket packages as they did in previous years. “So we kind of worked with USG and Nuthouse and threw this idea
around,” Scarborough said. “We started putting the plans in place from a functionality standpoint in order to make them work and we were able to get all those ducks in a row and be able to do it that way.” Scarborough said that after students purchase a student ticket package, the tickets will be loaded onto the student’s BuckID. Students will swipe their student ID at the arena’s student entrance for verification. Students will then walk to a table where they will be handed a ticket for the best available seat in the student section. Seats in the student section are “first come, first serve,” Scarborough said. This means the earlier students gets in line, the closer they will be to the court. Even if students don’t want to go to every game, Scarborough said students have options to give away their tickets. Students can just give their BuckID to the person taking their ticket and they will be able to get in. “In other words, we aren’t going to be looking at the picture on the ID,” Scarborough said. “We just validate whether there is a ticket present on there.”
Lantern file photo
students cheer during the 1st half of Osu’s 93-65 win against wisconsin on march 6, 2011, at the schottenstein center. Secondly, Scarborough said there will be an online functionality where students can transfer a ticket from one BuckID to another by using the ID numbers. This way, the student receiving the ticket will be able to use his or her own ID instead of borrowing someone else’s. Sara Wesselkamper, a first-year in exploration, said although the new system might make it harder to sell tickets, it will be more convenient. “I like the idea because I’m always scared I‘m going to lose my tickets,” Wesselkamper said.
While some students have expressed concerns that the process will make it unnecessarily difficult to sell their tickets, others like Matt Curtis, a fifth-year in marketing, don’t think it should be an issue. “If you are going to buy them, then you shouldn’t end up selling them anyway,” Curtis said. Scarborough said with the semester change, OSU had to think about what games to include in the student package. The games included in the
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