“Radical left thugs harassed and intimidated Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff as he walked to his car. They ranted, and when he got to his car, they tried to block him in. As they always do. They throw themselves in front of the car, pretending they’re hit. They try to exert control in this way.
The students involved should all be expelled. They call themselves The Students for a Democratic Cornell. They’re Marxists.
It’s a Marxist Tactic
Unfortunately, Kotlikoff is a DEI supporter and is in violation of Trump’s orders. However, in this case, he wasn’t wrong.
Legal Insurrection founder Bill Jacobson explained the tactic. It’s called a “Decision Dilemma” tactic. It is why most protests look the same.
From the activist guidebook:
Design your action so that your target is forced to make a decision, and all their available options play to your advantage.
If you design your action well, you can force your target into a situation where they have no good options: where they’re “damned if they do, and damned if they don’t.” This is known as a decision dilemma….
Many actions with concrete goals (such as a blockade or a sit-in) require a decision dilemma in order to be successful. A sit-in at a corporate HQ, for instance, should leave your target with only two options if they are not willing to meet your demands: 1) Evict you forcibly and face the negative public attention this would cause, or 2) wait you out, allowing you to gather more attention and support while business as usual grinds to a halt.
When done skillfully, decision dilemmas can help win major concessions from powerful targets.
“And that’s what this is all about. These are student activists who, rather than expressing their opinion, decided to target the president and put him in a decision-making dilemma that would make him look bad. And to that extent, they’ve succeeded,” Jacobson told Greg Kelly on his Newsmax show. The media is ripping the president instead of the Marxist students.
Kotlikoff Hits Back
Cornell University president Michael Kotlikoff hit back. He sent an email to the university community on Friday. He pushed back on the anti-Israel radicals who surrounded his car. This incident occurred after a campus debate on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. The thuggish youth, including non-students, accused him of backing into a demonstrator.
“As I left the event room, I was accosted by a group of several individuals in the hall, among them students and non-students,” Kotlikoff wrote. He added that the group followed him from the lecture hall to his car, shouting questions and taking video on their phones. He continued, “After answering a few questions, I let them know that I was not planning to engage further and asked them to stop recording.”
“Their response to this was, ‘No, we are not going to stop,’” Kotlikoff wrote.
“They continued to follow me to my car and then surrounded the car, banging on the windows, blocking the car, and shouting.
“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.” Kotlikoff concluded his email with strong language about “successful disagreement,” which he described as democracy’s “single, foundational skill.”
BREAKING: The Cornell President just obliterated the extremist students who surrounded his car.
Rather than surrendering to them and apologizing, he directly called out their unlawful behavior.
This is what true leadership looks like. pic.twitter.com/8oE3ImnnAM
— Eyal Yakoby (@EYakoby) May 6, 2026
The Tactic in Action
Here he is backing out. They deliberately put themselves in the car’s path as he slowly crawled out of the space. The youth who deliberately blocked the car said the president ran over his foot. He was walking fine after, however.
Cornell University’s president says he’s the victim of “harassment and intimidation” after being accused of reversing into a group of individuals with his car following an Israel-Palestinian debate.
“These individuals followed me from the event space and across campus, while… pic.twitter.com/jj5Y8LSycx
— Fox News (@FoxNews) May 7, 2026