The president of Cornell University claimed on Monday that he was victim “harassment and intimidation” following a confrontation with protesters in which he appeared to get into his car and back into one of the demonstrators.
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President Michael Kotlikoff said he had just left Goldwin Smith Hall on the school’s Ithaca, New York, campus where several groups — including Cornell Progressives, Cornellians for Israel and Students for Justice in Palestine — had gathered for a debate Thursday night on the on-going crisis in the Middle East.
As he left the event, Kotlikoff said he was followed by demonstrators all the way to his car.
“After answering a few questions, I let them know that I was not planning to engage further, and asked them to stop recording,” the president said in a statement on Friday.
“Their response to this was, ‘No, we are not going to stop.’ They continued to follow me to my car and then surrounded the car, banging on the windows, blocking the car, and shouting.”
Footage appeared to show Kotlikoff backing out and making contact with one of the protesters.
“I waited until I saw space behind the car and then, using my car’s rear pedestrian alert and automatic braking system, was able to slowly maneuver my car from the parking space and exit the parking lot,” according to Kotlikoff.
However, Students for a Democratic Cornell insist Kotlikoff “was dismissive” of student “attempts at dialogue before the collision occurred.”
The student activist group posted a video it claimed showed how Kotlikoff backed “his car into a student” and ran “over the foot of another.”
“The student whose foot was run over received on-site medical attention from Cornell EMS and express fear regarding potential retaliation for pressing charges against the University leadership,” according to the group.
