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Syracuse University announced it will grant two honorary degrees during the commencement ceremony for the Class of 2020, which will take place on Sunday.

The degree recipients are Daniel D’Aniello, co-founder and chair emeritus of the private equity firm the Carlyle Group, and Kevin Richardson, a criminal justice reform activist with the Innocence Project who was wrongfully convicted and sentenced along with four other teenagers for the rape of a jogger in Central Park in New York City in 1989.

Richardson, who once dreamed of attending SU, was nominated for the honorary bachelor of fine arts degree back in 2019. He told Oprah Winfrey in an interview that he wished to play the trumpet in SU’s band.

Richardson and four others were dubbed the Exonerated Five, formerly known as the Central Park Five. The five teenagers were exonerated in 2002 after the actual perpetrator confessed to the crime. 

SU held a benefit reception in September 2019 supporting a scholarship program for Black and Latino students at SU. The event also honored Richardson and the Exonerated Five 30 years after they were arrested for a crime they didn’t commit.

Richardson continues to serve as a motivational speaker, traveling around the country to spread knowledge of flaws and injustice in the legal system. The Netflix series “When They See Us,” released in May 2019, chronicled the flawed police investigation and prosecution of the Exonerated Five.

D’Aniello, who will receive a doctor of humane letters degree, is an SU Life Trustee known internationally for his role in starting the Carlyle Group in 1987 and serving as chairman of the Wolf Trap Foundation, a performing arts philanthropy. He was previously vice president for finance and development at Marriott Corporation.

He graduated from SU in 1968 after studying transportation economics on a scholarship. After that, he was drafted in the U.S. Navy in 1968 and spent three years serving as a supply officer. He later got an MBA at Harvard University. 

While studying at the now-Martin J. Whitman School of Management, D’Aniello was a varsity gymnast and a member of the Beta Gamma Sigma honor society, according to an SU News release. 

In 2018, D’Aniello and his wife Gayle gave a $20 million gift to support the creation of the SU National Veterans Resource Center.

Published on September 14, 2021 at 11:33 pm

Contact Richard: rjchang@syr.edu | @RichardJChang1