Cornell University’s board of trustees said it’s standing by the Ivy League school’s president Michael Kotlikoff after a group of students followed him to his car and surrounded him following an Israel-Palestine debate series last month.
“The Committee has found that the actions taken by these individuals on April 30th, which included following President Kotlikoff from an evening event into a parking lot and impeding his ability to leave, are inconsistent with university policies governing expressive activity and our standards for respectful conduct, safety, and the prohibition of intimidation,” the board announced following an investigation into the viral incident.
Several of the students who claimed at the time that the president’s car had struck them all declined medical treatment and refused to provide sworn statements to campus police despite repeated attempts to collect them.
“CUPD presented the evidence collected to the Tompkins County District Attorney’s office, which determined that no criminal charges were warranted against any individuals involved in this matter,” the statement continued.
“President Kotlikoff has declined to pursue a complaint against the students involved, which would have been required to initiate action under the university’s code of conduct. Appropriate action is being taken against the non-students involved.”
The same group of rabble-rousers have become notorious on the university’s Ithaca, New York campus for spewing abuse toward Cornell staffers both online and in-person, and swarming Kotlikoff’s vehicle as he attempted to exit the campus is the latest escalation in their tactics.
The students became incensed following a campus debate series hosted by the Cornell Political Union and co-sponsored by Cornell Progressives, Cornellians for Israel and Students for Justice in Palestine.
Kotlikoff, who has been president of Cornell since March 2025, insisted that the earlier debate series event was “vigorous and civil,” and was a prime example of the “open discourse that we prize in our academic community.”
Although Kotlikoff maintained from the start that the enraged leftists were the aggressors in the caught-on-camera incident, lefty students claimed he injured at least two protesters in the parking lot.
“When we tried to discuss campus speech policies, he hit us with his car,” the Students for a Democratic Cornell wrote on Instagram alongside footage of the incident.
“Kotlikoff’s violent response to student inquiry is just another example of his administration’s repressive crackdown on student speech.”
Between its rigorous investigation — which included consulting with independent legal counsel to ensure the integrity of CUPD’s own probe — the video evidence and participants’ unwillingness to cooperate, the board found Kotlikoff acted appropriately, concluding its missive with a strong vote of confidence.
“President Kotlikoff has shown a steadfast commitment to Cornell’s values and principles, and we are confident he will continue to lead with integrity as we work together to carry out our shared mission to discover, preserve, and disseminate knowledge, to educate the next generation of global citizens, and to promote a culture of broad inquiry throughout and beyond the Cornell community,” the school wrote.
Kotlikoff’s exoneration by the board was lauded by several Cornell law professors.
“The result of the Board of Trustees’ investigation into the incident between activists and Cornell’s President confirms what the public videos showed — reckless conduct meant to trap and confront the President in a dangerous manner, and highly questionable claims of injury by the activists,” professor William A. Jacobson told The Post.
“This incident is just the latest example of a Cornell anti-Israel activist community out of control,” he added.
Law professor Menachem Rosensaft said he was “extremely gratified” the board reached the conclusion it did and the message it sent.
“I think it’s the resolution speaks well for both Cornell, it speaks well for the board and for the ad hoc committee that expressed its full confidence in Mike Kotlikoff,” he told The Post.
“I think President Kotlikoff is 100% correct in not pursuing any disciplinary measures against the students involved, because that’s what they would have liked. They would have liked to be turned into martyrs, and instead they can now be relegated back to the obscurity that they so richly deserve.”
The incident comes a little more than a year after the Trump administration suspended more than $1 million in funding for the elite university last April as the federal government investigated alleged civil rights violations.
In November, the university struck an agreement to restore hundreds of millions in federal funding, agreeing to pay more than $30 million to the government, and invest an additional $30 million into its agriculture and farming efficiency programs for which it’s known.
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