Dear Cornell kids: Blocking a person’s retreat is threatening his life
A student group at Cornell University claims university president Michael Kotlikoff “hit us with his car” after a debate over Israel. Students for a Democratic Cornell call the incident a “violent response to student inquiry.”
TL;DR
- Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff is accused by a student group of hitting them with his car after a debate about Israel.
- The student group, Students for a Democratic Cornell, called the incident a "violent response to student inquiry."
- Video evidence suggests students attempted to block Kotlikoff's car as he was attempting to reverse and then move forward.
- The article argues that Kotlikoff was attempting to retreat slowly and that the students' actions of blocking his car endangered him.
- It invokes the legal principle of "duty to retreat" in self-defense, suggesting that Kotlikoff's actions were justified due to the students' detention.
- The piece critiques the tactic of blocking cars as a protest method, stating that delaying a person can escalate to detaining them, which changes the applicable rules.