Cornell’s Chance To Stand Up for Civil Discourse by Defending Its President

The protesters who blocked the car of Cornell’s president, Michael Kotlikoff, on April 30 seemed intent on gaining victim status. Despite all reasonable care on the president’s part, one was slightly bumped, prompting a predictable overreaction. Some of their foolish fellow students have taken their side and now call for Mr. Kotlikoff’s resignation.What is lost in this affair is that the real victim is Cornell University. It has suffered a setback in the free exchange of ideas that Mr. Kotlikoff has determinedly championed. The headline here is not that Mr. Kotlikoff bumped a student with his car, but, rather, that a group of agitators harassed and attempted to intimidate him.Note the irony. Mr. Kotlikoff, who is Jewish, had just introduced the virulently anti-Israel Norman Finkelstein at a campus event: such is his commitment to the free exchange of ideas. One might think this would impress even the pro-Palestinian agitators. Yet free expression and open dialogue are not what these students want, two of whom reportedly had been banned from campus for previous disciplinary infractions.This kind of student misbehavior needs to be quashed decisively. It is all-too common in the Ivy League: recall how Harvard responded inadequately when a Jewish student wearing a yarmulke was surrounded and constrained by pro-Palestinian demonstrators eleven days after the October 7 massacre. Or at another selective school, the University of California, Los Angeles, where students formed a wall to prevent “Zionists” from entering their encampment, which blocked access to classrooms.In a similar incident at an Ivy League school, Columbia, pro-Palestinian protesters who had established an encampment on the campus formed “a human chain against people they say are Zionists,” Newsweek reported.Mr. Kotlikoff surely had to wonder if he might be reliving what happened at Middlebury College in 2017, when Charles Murray and his interlocutor, Professor Allison Stanger, were accosted after an event. Ms. Stanger ended up in the hospital with serious injuries. Survey data show that 15 percent of college students think violence is always or sometimes an acceptable method to stop someone from speaking. The Anti-Defamation League just reported that assaults against American Jews are at a 46-year high.Mr. Kotlikoff has been exemplary in his engagement with students: not all university presidents show such dedication. One consequence of this event is that Mr. Kotlikoff might henceforth need a security escort on his own campus.If students want to have the freedom they now enjoy, they need to exercise responsibility and contribute to a culture of civility, free expression, and open inquiry on campus. They should support their president and demand a campus free of intimidation and harassment.Mr. Kotlikoff has been doing great work to improve Cornell’s policies and culture since taking office. He has adopted institutional neutrality. He is revising conduct rules and has dealt appropriately with disruptive students who break those rules. The protesters, on the other hand, are interested only in advancing their political goals, no matter how much damage they do to Cornell and Cornellians.Going forward, it would be wise to have every student sign a document acknowledging they have read the code of conduct and understand the consequences for failing to abide by it. Cornell should not let these agitators think for a moment that they can continue to use these sorts of tactics. This is a pivotal moment in that effort. The university’s trustees must stand behind their president and give him full support to hold the line.This piece was written with the collaboration of the Paul & Karen Levy Fellow in Campus Freedom at the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, Steven McGuire.

Cornell’s Chance To Stand Up for Civil Discourse by Defending Its President

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