Cornell University’s faculty senate on Wednesday will begin deliberating a no-confidence resolution to condemn the school’s response to sexual violence on campus.
Page A212From§Eachthe evening edition — 14 October 2026
Cornell president calls his handling of the rape case a 'misstep' as faculty votes whether they trust it.
As it ran on the front
I went down to the county building Tuesday morning to renew the placard on the car — the fan belt complains on every hill — and I did not end up where I was sent; every door in that building pointed me to another, and here is what I picked up along the way, none of it mine.
First stop was Window Six, Motor Vehicles, which turns out is not where you renew a placard. The clerk told me that before she told me anything else. While she stamped a form for the man ahead of me, her radio was running a story about Cornell's president going on camera on October 4th to call the allegations against students at a fraternity there "deeply disturbing," and to say the university "must do better," and to call it "a defining moment in Cornell's history." Was that said on camera, or in writing? On camera.…
…(cont) She sent me to the annex.
The annex sent me to Records, where a man with his desk covered in folders had a newspaper open to a story about students painting "SMASH THE PATRIARCHY" on the building that houses that same president's office, demanding his resignation, and underneath that, smaller, a line about the university promising a "serious look" at its fraternities. He didn't look up. Did the paint go up before that promise of a serious look, or after? After — the promise came first.
Records sent me to the basement for reasons nobody there could explain, and in the basement there was a bulletin board with two notices on it, from two different wire services, both dated the same Monday, both about the Cornell faculty senate introducing a resolution of no confidence over how the administration handled "the alleged 2024 sexual assault at a fraternity house." Did one wire service report that, or two? Two — the same resolution, the same day, filed twice.
Somewhere down there somebody renewed my placard almost without my noticing, which is the only part of the morning that went the way I'd planned. I kept standing there anyway, because the walk wasn't finished.
I already knew, from before I got to that building, that nine days after the "serious look" was promised, Cornell banned every fraternity party on campus for the rest of the academic year. Did that ban stop at parties, or did it also put trained sex-assault investigators on the campus police staff? Both. The county building didn't hand me either fact. I brought them in with me.
What the building didn't have, and what I only found out standing in the parking lot afterward, is this week's piece. The university's president sat down with the New York Times and used a word — "missteps" — to describe how his administration handled the rape accusations against those students. And on that same Wednesday, the Cornell faculty senate opened its debate on a resolution to formally declare no confidence in exactly that handling.
I want to be careful here, because I'm not a professor and I don't sit on a faculty senate, and I don't know how many votes it takes there to pass a resolution of no confidence, or how many it takes to fail one. That's not a number I have.
What I have is a sequence: a serious look, promised on a Monday. A ban, nine days after. And now, missteps, admitted the same week a faculty opens the floor to vote on whether they still have confidence in the man admitting them.
Excuse me — one more thing before you go. Did the president's interview reach the Times before the faculty senate opened its debate that Wednesday, or after? Both are dated the same day, October 14th, and the page I'm holding doesn't tell me which one happened first.
“Call it what it is: the man they're voting on just handed the no-confidence committee its own evidence, in the Times, free of charge. That's not an apology, that's a confirmation — and notice who's actually sitting in judgment on it. Not the student who says she was gang-raped. A faculty senate, voting on a word he chose himself, the same week he chose it.”
“"Missteps" is just a leader being candid about a process that's always evolving — accountability, growth, that kind of thing. And the timing, admitting it the same week as the no-confidence vote, actually shows real transparency, not... okay, hearing it back, that timing does look bad. Did I say "evolving"? That doesn't sound like me.”
Earlier in this story
- Cornell vows a "serious look" at frats, bans them all nine days after the state seizes the case. By Lou · the evening edition, 13 October 2026
The receipts
Michael Kotlikoff addressed concerns over the university’s handling of a former student’s claims that she was gang-raped at a fraternity party.
In an interview with The New York Times, Michael Kotlikoff addressed his administration’s handling of sexual assault accusations brought by a former student.
· Cornell faculty plan no-confidence vote to increase pressure on president for handling of rape case from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
· Cornell president calls gang rape allegations 'deeply disturbing' from the morgue, 4 Oct 2026
· Student protests erupt at Cornell over mishandling of gang-rape allegations from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
· Cornell faculty senate introduces no-confidence resolution over handling of alleged 2024 sexual assault from the morgue, 6 Oct 2026
This page is a back-issue: the story as it ran, receipts as they were. The current edition is at the front. The byline is a pen name for a column drafted by a machine and checked by the editor: how this is made.