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The president of Cornell backed his car into a student and a recent grad after a campus debate on Israel-Palestine. Then he lied about what happened in an email claiming he'd been the victim of harassment. Then, magnificently, Cornell's student newspaper found a video of the incident

Dan Hirschman@asociologist.bsky.social

“Video footage obtained by The Sun shows Students for a Democratic Cornell members Aiden Vallecillo ’26 and Hudson Athas ’27 being struck by the car. In the video, no person can be seen touching the vehicle before it drove into Vallecillo and Athas.” www.cornellsun.com/article/2026...

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I’m so sick of these privileged assholes trying to take advantage of everyone they encounter. Seriously, wtf happened to “servant leaders” whether you’re a university president, congress person or the freakin POTUS. All of us should have higher expectations of our fellow human beings!

That's one of the weirdest phrasing I've ever seen It's almost like they're: * A: using AI to create their titles * B: have orders to diminish things in some situations * C: A and B

It’s quite common: “a car and pedestrian/cyclist collide”. A phrasing that implies equal fault, equal impact between the parties, and absolves the driver of the car of all responsibility

Thurber in 1933 saw the humor in such minimization. From the story “The Dog That Bit People”: “Mother examined the bite and put arnica on it and told Mrs. Detweiler that it was only a bruise. ‘He just bumped you,’ she said. But Mrs. Detweiler left the house in a nasty state of mind.”

There’s always a video. Glad they found it. And honestly, he should be fired for stupidity alone since one of the clips in the article shows someone videoing as they’re walking, which means at least 2 people were videoing and there is no way he didn’t know that and lied anyway.

Wow, completely unambiguous evidence he lied about them pounding on his car, you get audio of the whole (brief) thing

I just cannot imagine. I was lucky to spend time at Queen's at Kingston, not far from Cornell as the crow flies. Our student body at the time forced the admin to divest from south africa, it was an ugly campaign. Our President and Principal managed to not commit assault at the time though.

The video clearly shows the students committing an unlawful restraint and if I were them I’d pray the whole thing gets forgotten. Whether the president also needs to be charged depends on what’s shown on the other videos conveniently ignored here.

I'm no university administrator, but "drove a car into a group of students peacefully trying to talk to him, then falsely claimed the students had blocked him in and were pounding on the car when they hadn't and weren't" feels like part of the sort of sentence that also includes "fired with cause"

I know there are lots of good people in college administration, but it's increasingly one of those roles like "private equity lawyer," "oil executive," or "Red Sox fan" where you're really going to have to convince me in each individual case

Look I only went to the other hill (The one “Higher Above Cayuga’s Waters”) but I was still there more than long enough to know that this was DEFINITELY the wrong town to try this in…