Milton Taam ’73 received a persona non grata from the Cornell University Police Department on May 4, banning him from campus for three years. Taam received the persona non grata on the basis of trespassing after being present for the April 30 incident where President Michael Kotlikoff was questioned on free expression and drove into a student on campus.
The persona non grata was issued to Taam on the basis of trespassing on Cornell property, specifically in the Day Hall Parking Lot, according to the persona non grata obtained by The Sun. Taam is prohibited from entering any grounds owned by Cornell for three years unless approved by the chief of CUPD.
In an interview with The Sun, Taam said the trespassing charge “makes no sense.” Taam also said that the officers who delivered the persona non grata “didn’t at all” explain the charge to him.
CUPD did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The persona non grata order is basically a formalized notice that Cornell gives to individuals saying, ‘you do not have our permission to be here, and therefore entering onto Cornell property in the future will be treated as a trespass,’” said Prof. James Grimmelmann, Tessler family professor of digital and information law, to The Sun.
The persona non grata was issued in response to the incident on April 30 in which a group of students and alumni followed Kotlikoff from a Cornell Political Union debate centered around the Israel-Palestine conflict and surrounded his car to ask questions about free expression on campus. Video footage obtained by The Sun shows that Kotlikoff backed into a student and ran over the foot of a recent alumnus after the group blocked his car.
Taam attended the CPU debate with his wife, Barbara Taam ’74. After finding out that Kotlikoff attended the event, the two handed him their book, Palestine — People, Land, and Solidarity — With Our Own Eyes.
After the CPU event, Barbara went to give a copy of their book to the featured speaker, Norman Finkelstein, while Milton went to Kotlikoff to “give him a face to associate with the book,” he said.
Milton then noticed a group of students asking him questions about free expression on campus and decided to act as a “citizen photojournalist” and record their interactions, he said.
Milton said that he noticed a difference in the way that Kotlikoff and former Cornell President James Perkins — who was president when Milton was a student — responded to student protestors. Perkins was president during the Willard Straight Takeover in 1969, in which Black students occupied Willard Straight Hall for 36 hours demanding racial justice and an improved judicial system on campus.
“I remember … Perkins spent the whole night in Barton Hall talking with students,” Milton said. “Kotlikoff couldn't spend two minutes.”
Milton walked with the students as they followed Kotlikoff to his car and filmed that exchange as well.
“I heard that one of the students [was] bumped or run over … so I knocked on Kotlikoff’s window,” Milton said, in order to tell Kotlikoff that “‘some students have been hit … but then [Kotlikoff] didn't seem to respond at all.”
Four days later, Milton received the persona non grata for trespassing that night.
Trespassing is defined as “knowingly entering another owners’ property or land without permission, which encroaches on the owners’ privacy or property interests,” according to Cornell’s Legal Information Institute.
“Cornell's campus generally is open to the public, which means that anybody who wanders onto one of the quads, they are there with Cornell's permission, and it's not a trespass just to be there,” Grimmelmann said. “What happens is that sometimes Cornell feels that due to their violations of University policies or public safety, they need to revoke that permission.”
Milton and Barbara Taam were among 13 pro-Palestine protestors arrested at a “Pathways to Peace” panel on the Israel-Palestine conflict in March 2025. Though charges were dismissed, they filed a class action complaint in March against the University along with four other plaintiffs for false arrest, false imprisonment and malicious prosecution.
Currently, their lawyer is working to file a preliminary injunction to get the persona non grata dismissed, Milton said, adding that “it’d be nice to be able to participate” in the alumni weekend reunion on June 4 and the graduation ceremony on May 23.
Milton added that he feels there is a difference between the time it takes for someone to receive a disciplinary action and the time it takes to remove it.
“These things seem to be handed down against people quickly and dismissal seems to be very tedious,” Milton said.
The University did not respond to comment about the persona non grata.
Coral Platt is a member of the Class of 2029 in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a staff writer for the News department and can be reached at cplatt@cornellsun.com.
