Before anything else: I will again reject any claims made against myself and any of my running mates, with special vigor to those sourced from SA’s nest of vipers.
On March 26, during the candidate debate, SA President Aisha Adam asked me a question that misrepresented my vote on Resolution S#2 (regarding the executives’ power to fire one third of the SA Senate’s voting members). I started off the meeting by praising some of her work as President, then SA’s presiding officer decided to lie about my record to potential voters. That poorly thought out “trap” question set the tone for the entire election.
Aisha Adam previously served as president of UB’s TPUSA chapter, according to The Spectrum’s own reporting from March 2025. Seemingly, she held that position for roughly a year. She held the SA presidency for about as long. Conveniently, the new story is that she did not know what TPUSA was about. If a year leading an organization is not enough time to know what it does, one wonders how much she knows about SA.
The Spectrum’s article, published on the second day of voting, traces these allegations back to a single source: Aisha Adam.* Adam used the term “conduct complaints” to describe what were, in fact, allegations that had never been filed with any university body, never reviewed by any neutral party, and never disclosed to me. That phrasing was designed to give “institutional” and “disciplinary” weight to complaints that simply amount to, “some people happen to not like someone running for office.” The paper acknowledged it had not reviewed the complaints. UB’s Student Conduct office confirmed, after the article was already published, that I had no student conduct complaint on file. The Spectrum did eventually add an obscured editor’s note reflecting this. The headline was not changed, naturally, nor was the piece pulled.
Adam also told The Spectrum that SA found “more creative ways to keep things away from” me. The sitting president of the Student Association admitted, on the record, to hiding allegations from the person they concerned, then went public with them during an election in which she had a direct stake. If the complaints were genuine, a dutiful public servant would have provided appropriate institutional contacts. Adam did not run this cycle, but her stake was real. Her party name, her employees, and her political allies were all on the ballot against me.
That is all context. Here is the substance. Feel free to cross reference both articles for a
laugh at the lack of substance in the original.
The Pipeline
During the candidate debate, several individuals confronted me and my running mates with allegations. Ryder Albano, an SA employee, announced that I was involved in a lawsuit. Adam Billali backed him up in a manner that could charitably be described as emphatic. Neither was particularly effective. “Random” student Manning Xiao certainly had a script. He delivered a few facially deficient statements while looking incessantly at his open laptop. He claimed I had received a no-contact order. That is false. The Spectrum’s own article clarifies that I have not received such an order. Later, Xiao also claimed I had made an inappropriate video call to a SUNY SA representative. That is also false. Every specific claim Manning Xiao made at that debate was wrong. Albano and Billali appeared together and seemed to be working in tandem, slowly moving closer to Xiao over the course of the debate. But where Xiao was robotic and scripted, they were just loud.
These individuals did not show up with these claims on their own. The claims came from Adam (according to the Spectrum), were seeded to students and to The Spectrum, and surfaced publicly at the debate and in print on a timeline synchronized with the voting window. An anonymous source who communicates with Adam has told me this effort was planned well in advance, and that a second individual, whom I will not name because he does a commendable job facilitating Senate meetings, indicated he would “fabricate” evidence to have me removed from the senate. I have not independently verified the second claim. I include it because people who were in the room will know exactly who I mean, and they should understand that others are aware of what was discussed.
The Spectrum’s Role
The Spectrum published an article built on one person’s unverified assertions, during an active election, without having reviewed the underlying documents. Investigative journalism requires at the bare minimum an ethical standard that takes source and actual cause into account. I am not the UB Spectrum, so my piece will state clearly defined and cited claims.
The Spectrum has had trouble with context in its coverage of me from the start. When The Spectrum profiled SA Senate candidates in fall 2025, the article referenced materials which contributed to litigation, without even placing an editor’s note that I am now one of the plaintiffs in an ongoing federal case against my previous college. The lawsuit had not yet been filed at the time of their publication, but the framing was inaccurate and got attention from the political opportunists within SA, which they have since used to make me a target of various false claims. You can read the full filing here.
Jack Walsh, His Fursona, and the Discord Messages
SA has a history of hiring great people.
Jack Walsh is an SA employee and an executive board member of the SA-recognized club UB Furs. He ran for Vice President for Advocacy on Laron Fomby’s “Victory” ticket last spring and lost. He ran for UB Council Student Representative in April 2024 and lost that too, in a race where the incumbent alleged she was harassed and threatened during the campaign. Walsh is also known on Reddit as u/Ill_Muscle_6259, a fact The Spectrum confirmed and which he verified himself when he posted his candidacy announcement in April 2024. On that same account, he had previously posted a “UB Iceberg” chart in February 2024 and later posted an update that included a claim that a former SA president had “laundered money.” He deleted the post during this academic year, but the comments remain. This is not the first time Walsh has used internet platforms to push unverified, damaging claims about UB students.
An anonymous source provided me with Discord messages from UB Furs (an SA club), where Walsh’s fursona, “Bash,” made the following statements, among others: On February 25, 2026, he wrote that “there is a correct ticket in this election” and described himself as “a behind the scenes guy.” On the same date, he indicated that Jack Koscinski and several other presidential candidates were “pretty good.”
On April 1, 2026, he wrote: “I wish [The Spectrum] article was out earlier.”
On April 3, 2026, the final day of voting, he urged members to vote for “anyone but Grant.”
Walsh is an SA employee. SA is a 501(c)(3) funded by a mandatory student activity fee of $109 per student. When an SA employee who sits on the executive board of an SA-recognized club uses that club’s communication channels to coordinate against a specific candidate, that is not personal expression. That is an employee of a tax-exempt organization that UB requires you to pay for. SA’s own election rules prohibit the use of SA resources to campaign for or against any specific candidate. Walsh’s messages, on their face, appear to violate those rules.
On February 18, Walsh met with me in Clemens Hall under the pretense of wanting to join my ticket. He proceeded to ask a series of pre-prepared questions, one of which was how I would “handle the Israel issue if it came up during the election,” following a line of questioning about my running mate Josh Brodsky. I have documentation and a witness.
Aisha, Jack, and the Party
Aisha Adam ran under the “REAL” party name last spring. Jack Koscinski ran under “Stampede.” This cycle, Koscinski adopted Adam’s party name and ran a full ticket under “REAL.”
On March 26, Adam used the SA president’s university listserv to send an email to thousands of students featuring an image that read “Chat, is this real?” with a character pointing at the word “Real,” announcing the candidate debate. The same debate where Albano, Billali, and Xiao confronted me with her allegations. The same debate where she lied about my voting record on S#2. That email went to the entire undergraduate student body through an official SA communication channel during the election period.
On April 2, Adam sent an email to UB’s SUNY Student Assembly delegates ahead of the SUNY SA Spring Conference. In it, she instructed delegates not to discuss “unconfirmed rumors” about “members of our delegation, DGI reps, or others across SUNYSA.” The timing and framing were a clear attempt to poison the well with my fellow delegates, calling her own lies “rumors” and appointing herself the arbiter of what could be discussed at a statewide conference.
The people running on or supporting the REAL ticket included multiple SA employees: Jack Koscinski, Laron Fomby, Na’dia Carter, and William Dong. Every one of them benefited from Adam’s claims. Her party. His candidacy. Her employees. His ticket. Her disclosure of unverified allegations against someone her protege was running against, timed to the voting window. The political entanglement is disqualifying on its own. Will UB investigate the relationships at question here?
What Happened to My Running Mates
My running mate Josh Brodsky is of a Jewish background. During and after the campaign, he was subjected to antisemitic targeting. A friend of mine witnessed Jack Koscinski referring to Brodsky as an “IDF soldier.” Our ticket was labeled “Israel Forward” online. On February 18, Jack Walsh sat across from me in Clemens Hall and asked how I would “handle the Israel issue” in the election, after a line of questioning about Josh. A separate individual, whom decency requires I refer to only as “Batman,” spread the Spectrum article and various claims across digital platforms with a traceable footprint, and claimed that a member of our group was involved with Students Supporting Israel. Batman actively attempted to tarnish my reputation by privately messaging numerous members of YDSA both prior to and after the release of the article.
On April 4, members of the LGBTA Club’s Discord compared me to Hitler, among other comments. That comparison alone demonstrates the sheer intensity of the hostility that these false claims have produced. Across other forums, members of UB Forward were compared to various notorious figures. None of this was spontaneous. It was built over weeks, fed by SA employees who circulated Adam’s unverified claims and by a newspaper that published them without verification. When you bring into the world a lie titled “conduct complaints,” distribute false claims across the student body, and otherwise attempt to tarnish someone’s reputation in the nastiest ways imaginable, the butterfly effects are demonstrably harmful and horrifying. Should the people who lit this match not be blamed for the fire that ensued?
Every member of UB Forward has lost friends over this. SA-recognized clubs have told me, directly and indirectly, that I should not attend their meetings or include myself in their communities. My running mates have been harassed. I have been doxxed. None of us expected the sheer coordinated nastiness that was unleashed on us for the crime of running in a student government election.
The Student Activities Fee
SA e-board members receive $19,500 per year in stipends. All SA employees are compensated from the same pool. Every dollar comes from a mandatory student activities fee that undergraduates have no choice but to pay. I do not believe a dollar of that fee should go to people of this moral character. When the people collecting those checks are the same people who laundered unverified allegations through a debate and a newspaper, coordinated behind the scenes through SA club Discord channels, and presided over a campaign season that included antisemitism, doxxing, and Hitler comparisons, the question is not whether the stipend amount is appropriate. The question is whether students should be compelled to fund this at all.
The Irony
During the debate, members of the REAL ticket awkwardly repeated the phrase “SA with a human face.” Consider what that face looked like in practice: a sitting president who lied about a senator’s voting record. SA employees who laundered unverified allegations through a debate and a newspaper. An SA employee whose fursona used an SA club’s Discord to tell members to vote against a specific candidate on the last day of voting. The same SA employee who previously posted unverified claims about a former SA president on Reddit, who asked a Jewish candidate’s running mate how he would “handle the Israel issue,” and whose own UB Council race was marked by filed harassment allegations.
This is what cancel culture looks like when it is not organic but artificially structured, when it has a budget, a listserv, and a $4.5 million mandatory-fee-funded organization behind it. It is not principled opposition. It is a machinery of personal destruction operated by the employees of a student government that exists to serve the people it targeted.
What I do not accept is the idea that any of this was normal, or that the people responsible should be permitted to move on as though it did not happen. Students at this university deserve a government that operates with basic decency. Consider canceling SA’s mandatory $109/student bloodsucking instead of attempting to cancel me.
The views expressed in this letter are the author’s own. Grant Peterson is a UB SA Senator and SUNY Student Assembly Delegate.
Editor’s Note: Outside of Adam, The Spectrum interviewed several SA senators, e-board members and non-SA affiliated UB students that expressed discomfort with Peterson's behavior. The Spectrum's story included quotes from five such students.
Photo: Courtesy of Matthew Messina, from the RMBERS' Instagram page
