{"id":29209,"date":"2026-05-15T21:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/29209\/"},"modified":"2026-05-15T21:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-15T21:27:07","slug":"cornell-criticizes-students-after-its-president-bumps-them-with-his-car","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/29209\/","title":{"rendered":"Cornell Criticizes Students After Its President Bumps Them With His Car"},"content":{"rendered":"

The trustees of Cornell University on Friday blamed a small group of students for an incident last month in which the university\u2019s president, Michael Kotlikoff, bumped his vehicle into them<\/a> after a debate about the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.<\/p>\n

The students approached Dr. Kotlikoff after he spoke at a campus discussion on April 30 about free speech and the Middle East conflict. They questioned him about the university\u2019s suspensions of pro-Palestinian students who had been involved in demonstrations. They then followed him and surrounded his black Cadillac S.U.V.<\/p>\n

Video supplied by the students then shows Dr. Kotlikoff reversing the S.U.V. and bumping one student, Hudson Athas, while another, Aiden Vallecillo, screams out that his foot had been run over.<\/p>\n

The trustees said that the students\u2019 actions were \u201cinconsistent with university policies governing expressive activity,\u201d but said that the university would not be pursuing disciplinary action against them. The district attorney in Tompkins County, which includes Cornell\u2019s Ithaca, N.Y., campus, declined to bring criminal charges against anyone involved, the statement added.<\/p>\n

The statement from the trustees did not directly address Dr. Kotlikoff\u2019s actions, but effectively absolved him of blame for the incident. The trustees expressed support for his ability to \u201clead with integrity\u201d and praised him as showing \u201ca steadfast commitment to Cornell\u2019s values and principles.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Friday afternoon, Dr. Kotlikoff released a statement in which he said that at the time of the incident, he had not believed that he had hit anyone when he backed up his car. He found out only when he saw clips of the incident circulating the next day, he said in the statement.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn retrospect, I certainly should have remained in my car, locked it and called the police,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

In a statement, the students involved in the incident criticized the investigation as biased and called for a \u201cpublic meeting\u201d with Dr. Kotlikoff to discuss free speech issues at Cornell. They accused Dr. Kotlikoff of trying to \u201cdisparage\u201d them, and said they had not been contacted by the trustees \u201cor any independent investigator.\u201d The trustees said that none of the students provided \u201csworn statements\u201d to Cornell campus police about the incident.<\/p>\n

Even as the protests that swept American universities over the Israel-Hamas war have largely faded, the institutional memory of the unrest lingers.<\/p>\n

At Cornell, some student groups had criticized the university for adopting policies that they said had led to a harsh crackdown on pro-Palestinian demonstrators. The university had said its policies were intended to counteract \u201charassment, intimidation, shutting down events and threats of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Like many universities in the United States, Cornell erupted with student protests in the spring of 2024 over the Israel-Hamas war. And since October 2023, when that war began, the university had issued more than 80 disciplinary actions, including suspensions, against students that it said had infringed on \u201cthe rights of others.\u201d<\/p>\n

The suspended students include the leader of the campus encampments movement, Momodou Taal<\/a>, a Ph.D. student in Africana studies whom the Trump administration sought to deport. Immigration officials had taken similar action against students at other universities whom they had accused of antisemitism.<\/p>\n

Dr. Kotlikoff, who was appointed as Cornell\u2019s president in March 2025, had served as interim president. Before that, he was the university\u2019s provost from 2015 to 2024.<\/p>\n

On April 30, he delivered the opening remarks at an event billed as a forum for open discussion about the war in Gaza. The event was sponsored by organizations that included pro-Palestinian and pro-Israel student groups and featured Norman Finkelstein, an author and political scientist.<\/p>\n

As Dr. Kotlikoff was leaving, a group of students confronted him, asking about the pro-Palestinian student suspensions. He initially engaged in a back-and-forth before waving goodbye and heading to his vehicle.<\/p>\n

Multiple videos show the students surrounding Dr. Kotlikoff\u2019s vehicle, which reverses slowly before brushing and stopping in front of Mr. Athas. It then accelerates and bumps Mr. Athas, causing him to stumble back, while Mr. Vallecillo yells that his foot was run over.<\/p>\n

In a statement after the incident, Dr. Kotlikoff said that he waited to reverse his car until he saw space behind him and asserted that the students had been banging on the vehicle. The students denied that, and videos did not show them doing so.<\/p>\n

On Friday, Dr. Kotlikoff sought in his statement to explain why he did not pursue disciplinary action against the students. Doing that, he said, would require public hearings that would give the students the platform that they wanted.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt would, in effect, reward the behavior and further divide our campus community, and this I will not do,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The trustees of Cornell University on Friday blamed a small group of students for an incident last month…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[6300,14299,13309,8,37,15914,11473,14301,9,14297,14300,7],"class_list":{"0":"post-29209","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-stories","8":"tag-colleges-and-universities","9":"tag-cornell-university","10":"tag-freedom-of-speech-and-expression","11":"tag-headlines","12":"tag-israel","13":"tag-kotlikoff","14":"tag-michael","15":"tag-momodou","16":"tag-news","17":"tag-pro-palestinian-campus-protests-2023","18":"tag-taal","19":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@news\/116580715196605465","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}