Who's to Blame When an Ivy League President Drives into His Students?

https://www.theringer.com/2026/05/22/national-affairs/cornell-car-scandal-president-michael-kotlikoff-higher-education

by hn_acker • 2 months ago

39 20 2 months ago

sameers• 2 months ago

"My car was being fully self driven, your honor."

mindslight2• 2 months ago

Really demonstrates how even if we arrive at the vaunted self-driving car future where liability for self-driving behavior falls fully on the manufacturer, there still needs to be a legal escape hatch for people enabling (or manipulating) self-driving with the intent of causing it to make such an error.

LarsDu88• 2 months ago

Aw fuck why did it have to be my alma mater.

Posting here before this politicized content gets autoremoved.

tdeck• 2 months ago

I know the feeling. I had nothing but positive emotions about my alma mater (WUSTL) until the chancellor went all in for genocide and gave a speech at the ADL bragging about it.

leephillips• 2 months ago

I saw the videos. He didn’t “drive into” anyone. Some idiots stepped in the path of a moving vehicle. Some, apparently, deliberately in order to get bumped, so that they could play the victim.

mrgoldenbrown• 2 months ago

https://statements.cornell.edu/2026/20260501-video-of-incide...

In the first video on this page, the video that the university posted to exonerate the driver, it sure looks to me like the white shirt black backpack person is standing stock still until the car starts moving, at which point they back up. They did not step into the path of a moving vehicle. Nor did they bang on the windows as the president claimed.

bobjordan3• 2 months ago

Surrounding a vehicle purposely impeding their exit path is by itself enough for me to generally side with the person being impeded. Further, if it also includes harassing and intimidating them, I refuse to agree that this behavior is acceptable and just write it off as protected speech like the author does. People have a fundamental responsibility to protect themselves, when forced into a situation like this. I remember watching the attack on Reginald Denny during the Rodney King riots and if you haven't seen that but agree with the author of this article, go watch what happened to Reginald Denny. This behavior of harassing drivers should not be normalized as acceptable in society. People that choose to do this and end up getting hurt, basically asked for it.

clipsy• 2 months ago

I think it's obviously correct that people have a right to defend themselves (including by using their car as a weapon) when genuinely threatened. But looking at the video, I see no indication whatsoever that he was in any danger; he was being inconvenienced and harassed, these are not things that justify a use of potentially lethal force in response. He had every opportunity to simply call the police and wait it out without endangering anyone's life.

Claims of self defense need to be held to a higher standard than a wholly subjective and non-falsifiable claim of "feeling threatened," otherwise it devolves into nothing more than selectively allowing assault and murder.

bobjordan3• 2 months ago

No, instead of normalizing that if you are passionate enough about some cause, it's okay to imprison other humans against their own will. Instead, it devolves to people realizing that it doesn't matter how passionate you are about some cause, imprisoning other humans against their will is an act of aggression that may get you killed. This is the way it should be. You have your right to be passionate, but, it doesn't allow you to put anyone else at risk by preventing someone against their will to leave or move away from you.

AngryData• 2 months ago

Driving into someone with a car is deadly force, so unless you could justify shooting or stabbing them for the same thing in self-defense I cannot agree.

Do you think he could justify pulling a pistol and firing it near or at them in this case? Because I am not sure he can.

bobjordan3• 2 months ago

If someone puts their hands on me to physically restrain or impede me from moving where I need to go, especially while acting in a threating intimidating manner, yes I fully believe I have a right to shoot or stab them or run over them with my car if that's the only way I can exit the situation, because I am not a mind reader, I do not know their next action or what else they are concealing that may further harm me.

I do not believe it is my responsibility to find out how the situation further escalates before I take action to protect myself from the current situation. The person(s) have already revealed ill intent by physically restraining me, it does not matter if I'm outside or inside my vehicle, the situation is the same, I am being physically restrained and that itself is physically aggressive.

Now, if it's more than one person like a crowd of people, it only magnifies the threat and risk. It's okay for people to feel passionate about whatever but physically restraining other humans against their will *is* an act of aggression justifying self-defense.

zzrrt• 2 months ago

The description reminds me of the Renée Good shooting. Both highly videotaped, intentional blocking of a departing vehicle, an official inexplicably releasing what many say is self-damning video, but people tend to see only what they already believed in the videos.

mindslight2• 2 months ago

First, the obvious difference being that none of these students were armed or violently assaulting the driver. Being asked uncomfortable questions while people get in your way is not is not a reason to fear for your life.

Second, each incident has a completely different action that is the focus of criticism. Here, it's the hitting of a person with the car, as that is as far as it got. Whereas with Renee Good, the action being criticized is the subsequent killing - we wouldn't still be talking about Good if she had merely been arrested at some later time. If one of these students had a gun and had shot the university president in response to the vehicular assault/collision, that would be analogous to what was done to Good.

metalman• 2 months ago

Renee Good

xg15• 2 months ago

Yeah, I sympathize with the cause of the protesters (the clampdown on pro-palestinian activists in particular and free speech in general is obvious) and I also sympathize with the idea of confronting the dean and showing the obvious hypocrisy of his statements - but making this about getting run over is a bit absurd. If you surround the car with the intention of blocking escape, you can expect that the driver will push back.

At least this is how it sounds to me from the article's description, without seeing the videos.

Arodex• 2 months ago

If you surround the car with the intention of blocking escape, you can expect that the driver will push back.

No, being blocked does not mean you are allowed to run over pedestrians. At least in any civilized country.

leereeves2• 2 months ago

If you're being held against your will, you're certainly allowed to fight against your captors.

Why would that be different when a car is involved?

bigyabai• 2 months ago

If you surround the car with the intention of blocking escape, you can expect that the driver will push back.

I'd hate to see how you respond to traffic jams, if this is the way you think drivers regard human life.

leereeves2• 2 months ago

You missed this part: "with the intention of blocking escape".

That separates traffic jams from intentional unlawful detention.

Who's to Blame When an Ivy League President Drives into His Students?

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