Editor’s Note: The following is an edited version of an open letter delivered by Marco Fuentes ’85 to President Michael Kotlikoff and members of Cornell University’s Board of Trustees. He can be contacted at marco_a_fuentes@hotmail.com.
Mr. Kotlikoff,
Through your administrative negligence and spineless handling of the alleged ‘Cornell Seven’ sexual assault, you have single-handedly degraded the reputation of Cornell University and eroded the value of the degrees earned by tens of thousands of proud alumni.
How do you intend to face alumni and request financial support after presiding over such a catastrophic failure of moral and executive leadership? Be advised that I am immediately instructing my legal counsel to amend my estate plan: the 50% bequest of my estate pledged to Cornell University is officially revoked. Furthermore, I am actively contacting fellow alumni, donor networks and class leadership to advocate for a complete, coordinated freeze on all personal and institutional contributions until leadership changes occur.
A student claims she was gang-raped by individuals who remain enrolled on your campus. In what universe — scientific, legal or moral — is this tolerable? If you truly believe the University’s cowardly response under your watch was appropriate, you are dangerously unfit for university leadership. Your managerial incompetence would be better suited as an assistant manager at a Waffle House or a front-door crier for a Bangkok go-go bar.
While you cannot police every private act of fraternity members, you possess total authority over the institution’s administrative response. In failing to act decisively, your weakness makes you de facto complicit in the violation and revictimization of this young woman.
If Cornell is to salvage any fraction of its standing, you must execute the following non-negotiable demands immediately:
1. Complete a full and compassionate settlement with the victim who was brutalized by these perpetrators and further victimized by your administration.
2. Immediately expel every remaining student involved in this crime.
3. Suspend every fraternity member who viewed the group messages and remained silent accomplices.
4. Permanently ban the fraternity from Cornell University without possibility of reinstatement.
5. Terminate every administrator and officer involved in approving this shameful response.
6. Issue a formal, public apology to all students and alumni for failing in your fundamental duty of care.
Make the institutional punishment so severe that no student will ever entertain such behavior again, and prospective female students will not have to weigh the risk of sexual violence when deciding whether to apply to Cornell.
Character is defined by how leadership responds to institutional failure. To date, you have failed miserably on every count. You must rectify this immediately — for the victim, for the current student body now disgraced by your leadership and for the alumni currently removing their Cornell diplomas from their walls in disgust.
Copies of this letter are being transmitted directly to the Board of Trustees along with a formal demand for your immediate resignation.
Disgusted Beyond Words,
Marco Fuentes ’85
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