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

zzrrt•34 minutes 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.

sameers•about 4 hours ago

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

LarsDu88•about 4 hours ago

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

Posting here before this politicized content gets autoremoved.

tdeck•about 1 hour 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•about 2 hours 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•about 1 hour 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.

Georgelemental•about 3 hours ago

Don't stand right behind and attempt to obstruct a car that's trying to back up. Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.

(I say this despite mostly supporting the political cause that the students are championing. I wish they were smarter and more disciplined, so that they would win more battles.)

quietsegfault•about 3 hours ago

In NY, motor vehicle operators have the responsibility to not run over pedestrians. It doesn’t matter if they’re standing behind you or obstructing you. No one has the right to strike someone with their vehicle. The video is clear that the president was negligent in operation of the vehicle.

I’m not sure why this is hard for you to understand, but I hope you don’t operate motor vehicles if you can’t grasp this.

Georgelemental•about 1 hour ago

I never said the president did nothing wrong or didn't break the law! In fact, I agree he probably did. The protesters did too, though, and I am not sympathetic

bobjordan•about 2 hours 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.

AngryData•about 1 hour 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.

clipsy•about 1 hour 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.

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

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