BUZZ
President had ‘weaponized’ his car and used his ‘power and privilege’ to send a campus-wide email about the incident
Cornell University academics and progressive activists won’t drop the matter of President Michael Kotlikoff refusing to engage with pro-Palestinian students and allegedly harming some with his car.
This past week Cornell alumnus Milton Taam (Class of ’73), one of the activists who followed Kotlikoff to his car and was declared persona non grata for a period of three years as a result, wrote an op-ed in the student paper explaining his side of the story.
Taam said that during the Israel-Palestinian debate which preceded the car incident, he and his wife had given Kotlikoff a copy of their book “Palestine — People, Land, and Solidarity — With Our Own Eyes.”
After the debate, Taam said “I saw Kotlikoff leaving and thought it was an opportunity to talk with him […] During a pause I introduced myself to President Kotlikoff as co-author of the book which he still carried.”
Taam told Kotlikoff he was one of those arrested at a pro-Palestinian protest during a campus event last year, but that the charges were dropped — and now he’s part of a lawsuit against the university, campus police, and Kotlikoff himself.
After Kotlikoff told the activists he wasn’t interested in further conversation, he got into his car and began to exit. Taam said he “knocked on Kotlikoff’s window” (which would confirm Kotlikoff’s claim that someone had “banged on the [car] windows”) after “hearing” that a student had been bumped by the car.
When [Kotlikoff] seemed unwilling to open his window to talk, I went to the front of the car and took a photo to document the situation. I then decided I was vulnerable to serious injury by President Kotlikoff because he continued to drive aggressively towards me. Fearing for my own safety I moved to the side. Kotlikoff then exited the Day Hall parking lot without acknowledging what he’d done and without talking with any of the five people.
Taam claims Kotlikoff had “weaponized” his car and used his “power and privilege” to send an email about the matter to the campus community. Taam added his lawyer “is working to file a preliminary injunction” to get the persona non grata order dismissed.
On May 23, the Cornell Chapter of the American Association of University Professors, Cornell Courage, the Cornell Collective for Justice in Palestine, and Cornell Graduate Students United issued a joint statement to express their “outrage” at how the Board of Trustees and Kotlikoff handled everything.
The groups called the investigation into the incident a “sham,” blasted Cornell’s “draconian” discipline policies, and ripped Kotlikoff for allegedly not caring about the activists’ well-being: “We should expect better judgment and greater empathy and patience of a University president.”
MORE: Cornell president cleared for slowly backing car into activists: ‘No criminal charges warranted’
