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Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff has been cleared of wrongdoing for slowly backing his car into student protesters and activists who had surrounded his vehicle following an Israel-Palestinian debate.
The protesters have also been cleared, according to the Ad Hoc Special Committee of the Board of Trustees, which stated in a memo Friday that the Tompkins County District Attorney’s office “determined that no criminal charges were warranted against any individuals involved in this matter.”
“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 memo stated.
At issue is an incident April 30 during which campus activists followed Kotlikoff to his car following an Israel-Palestinian debate asking him questions about past pro-Palestinian student suspensions. After he got in, they surrounded the car, stood behind it, and blocked it as it slowly backed out of a parking space.
The president’s car made contact with two students, including one who said his toes were run over.
There were no reported injuries, and according to Friday’s memo, the “individuals at the scene who reported that the vehicle made contact refused medical treatment from the EMS team and refused to provide sworn statements as to their account of the incident.”
Students for a Democratic Cornell released its own statement Friday denouncing the conclusion.
“The Committee’s statement does not acknowledge that Kotlikoff backed into the students, or that Kotlikoff’s initial statement responding to the incident accused students of conduct unsupported by video footage later released by the University,” the group stated.
The group added:
On May 1st, we contacted the Ithaca Police Department to request an independent police
investigation into the incident, and were told that IPD was unable to initiate an investigation
unless CUPD ceded its jurisdiction. We had no faith in CUPD’s ability to conduct an
independent investigation as an arm of the administration which has actively engaged in the
repression of student protest, and were concerned that information provided to CUPD could be
used against us by the University in disciplinary proceedings.We were never contacted by the Board’s Committee or any independent investigator. While both
investigations were still in process, Kotlikoff released a public statement falsely accusing
students of “banging on [his] windows,” an allegation unsupported by the University’s own video
footage of the incident. We had no reason to expect independence or impartiality from
University leadership.The Trustees’ statement also claims that we “refused medical treatment from the EMS team,”
which is false. After Kotlikoff ran over Aiden Vallecillo’s foot, he was fully evaluated by a Cornell
University EMS team who determined that he did not require additional treatment. The Trustees
released this false information without Vallecillo’s consent, and he has never publicly indicated
that he “refused medical treatment.” It is unclear how the Trustees obtained this information.
Kotlikoff released an updated statement on May 15 saying that in his initial public comments on the matter he did not think his car had made any contact with anyone.
“Only when I saw the videos circulating later did I realize that a student had placed himself directly behind the car without my being aware of it as I backed up,” he wrote.
“Only the following afternoon did I understand that my experience would look very different in the selected video clips posted on social media and be framed in ways that I found genuinely shocking. In the moment, my goal was extricating myself from the situation safely without escalating it. In retrospect, I certainly should have remained in my car, locked it, and called the police.”
MORE: Cornell investigates president for slowly backing car into campus activists
