Before ascending the ranks of academia, Cornell University President Michael Kotlikoff demonstrated against the Vietnam War and earned a literature degree at the University of Pennsylvania. Weeks before he graduated in 1973, women occupied the school's College Hall to protest leaders' response to a series of reported rapes.
Now at another Ivy League university, Kotlikoff finds himself in the midst of rising uproar over campus sexual-assault allegations -- and this time, he is the leader in the hot seat.
Kotlikoff, who at 75 is the oldest president to lead Cornell, has spent most of his two-year tenure battling crises. His predecessor stepped down in 2024 amid controversy over elite schools' handling of pro-Palestinian protests. Then came the Trump administration's accusations of antisemitism and liberal excess, and the disruption of federal funding.
Now, a lawsuit alleging an undergraduate was gang raped and drugged at a Cornell fraternity house in 2024 -- and that the school didn't do enough to protect her -- has ignited a new crisis on campus.
Monday afternoon, hundreds of Cornell students gathered near the school's famous clock tower and marched through campus in protest. On Tuesday, the gender and sexuality studies program is sponsoring a town hall. Wednesday, Cornell's chapter of the NAACP is asking students to boycott classes and join a seven-hour sit-in, the duration of time for which Jane Doe says she was sexually assaulted.
Members of the Faculty Senate are preparing a vote of no confidence in the ability of central administration "to effectively address the ongoing crisis of sexual assault," according to a draft resolution.
Kotlikoff addressed the Cornell community in an eight-minute video over the weekend. "I want to acknowledge something that can be difficult for an institution to say," he said. "We don't have all the answers."
He called this time a "defining moment in Cornell's history" and pledged to be more transparent about the investigation. He promised a serious look at campus Greek life: "We owe it to Jane Doe."
Kotlikoff grew up in South Jersey outside Philadelphia, where he attended a Quaker high school. After earning his bachelor's, he graduated first in his class from Penn's veterinary school.
A professor of molecular physiology, he rose to chair of the department of animal biology before coming to Ithaca, N.Y., in 2000 to build a new department in biomedical sciences at Cornell's College of Veterinary Medicine. He became a dean at Cornell in 2007 and provost in 2015.
Late in his tenure as provost, campus protests broke out following the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel by Hamas. At one point, a student threatened online to stab and sexually assault Jewish students. The incident set the tone for a polarization that Kotlikoff has been trying to bridge ever since.
Colleagues describe him as a good listener who is personable in private meetings and measured in his decision-making. "Everything he says is very careful; he doesn't want to get out over his skis," said classics professor Courtney Roby, who met with Kotlikoff regularly over six years on a faculty committee that liaises with administrators.
Some students find his caution frustrating now, she added. "He just doesn't want to get ahead of things, even though there's tremendous appetite for him to do that," she said. "They want details, they want fast-moving action, they want definitive and explicit descriptions of what's going on."
On Monday, activists vandalized the entrance to Day Hall, home to Kotlikoff's office. A glass door was shattered and messages were scrawled in red paint on the exterior walls reading: "SMASH THE PATRIARCHY" and "AT CORNELL RAPISTS ARE PROTECTED PROTESTORS ARE EXPELLED."
Spokesman Kyle Kimball said the university was investigating the incident. Through a spokeswoman, Kotlikoff declined to be interviewed for this article.
The anger echoes the ire he faced at the beginning of his tenure. Soon after Kotlikoff was named interim president, students spray-painted an administration building: "Israel bombs, Cornell pays" and "Blood is on your hands."
A month later, Kotlikoff told the student newspaper that he would finish his two-year stint as interim president, and then, "I'll almost certainly retire."
Instead, Kotlikoff's name was floated to fill the job on a permanent basis. An influential alumni organization opposed his appointment. Carl Neuss, founder of the Cornell Free Speech Alliance, said the group was formed because concerned alumni had come to believe Cornell has become intolerant of conservative viewpoints and beholden to diversity initiatives.
Kotlikoff was confirmed as president over their objections. One of his first orders of business was navigating a $60 million settlement with the federal government to restore research funding and resolve allegations of civil-rights violations.
This April, Kotlikoff delivered remarks at a Cornell Political Union debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict. In the parking lot afterward, students confronted him. When he got into his car, he said, students began banging on his windows, in what he described as acts of harassment and intimidation.
One student said Kotlikoff ran over his foot when he pulled away. An investigation by the university's board of trustees cleared Kotlikoff of wrongdoing. The student, now graduated, was banned from campus for a year.
Kotlikoff -- who earned $1.4 million in the year ended June 2025, according to the school's tax returns -- is now contending with a criminal investigation into Jane Doe's claims from the New York Attorney General's office and a divided campus. At Gov. Kathy Hochul's request, Cornell's board also plans to appoint a law firm to lead an independent review of the school's response.
Kathryn Boor, who has worked with Kotlikoff as both an administrator and a professor, said he was the right man for the moment.
"I feel like he has had the steadiest hand on this through some very rough waters, that any human could be expected to do," she said.