Not directly. A faculty no-confidence vote has no legal force, because only a university's trustees can hire or fire its president. That doesn't make the votes meaningless, though. In about half of past cases, the targeted president left within roughly a year, even though the vote was rarely given as the reason.

That's why Cornell's result is harder to read than "largely symbolic" makes it sound. The Faculty Senate passed its resolution, and right afterward the board chair said trustees "fully support" President Michael Kotlikoff. Here's what the track record of these votes shows.

0: The formal power a faculty vote carries

Legally, the board decides. Research on these votes notes that authority over a president's employment rests with the board. After a faculty vote, a board might act right away or do nothing at all. Back in 2013, Inside Higher Ed pointed out that presidents answer to boards that usually include no faculty. The real power of a vote is in shifting what the board or the public thinks.

Cornell's case shows that clearly. Only the Board of Trustees picks the president, so the resolution has no binding consequences. It's also narrower than some headlines suggest. It's a single sentence saying the senate has no confidence in "the central administration" to deal with the sexual assault crisis. It doesn't name Kotlikoff, and it doesn't call for his resignation. Supporters hoped it would push trustees to fix what they see as institutional failures.

About 50%: How often targeted presidents leave anyway

Several researchers have counted outcomes, and they keep landing near half:

  • A 2022 Chronicle of Higher Education analysis found that about 51% of presidents who faced a no-confidence vote left office within a year.
  • Researcher McKinniss, who built a database of votes from 1989 to mid-2021, also found that about half leave within a year.
  • A 2017 study searched two years of higher-ed news and found faculty votes at 57 institutions. The leader left within six months in 32 cases, or 56%. In 21 of those 32 cases, the departure was involuntary.
  • Michael Nietzel and Ambrose looked at about 75 votes going back decades. Their cases roughly back up the finding that more than half of targeted presidents leave, with Ambrose putting the window at 12 to 15 months. Nietzel says the research shows the votes are "much more meaningful" than symbolic in most cases.

Keep in mind that "about half" is an estimate. Nobody keeps a national record of these votes. Each study uses its own sample, its own time window (six months, a year, or 15 months) and its own definition of leaving.

13%: How often the vote gets the credit

If half of targeted presidents leave, why do these votes look so toothless? Partly because the exits are rarely publicly linked to the vote. A separate Chronicle project found that no-confidence votes played a part in only 13% of presidential resignations from 2018 to 2023.

There's also a question of cause and effect. The 2017 study says plainly that it did not test causation. Some departures were retirements, new jobs or promotions. A president who was already struggling might draw a no-confidence vote and also be on the way out for other reasons. The research shows the two often happen together, not that one causes the other.

2013: The "minimal impact" story that didn't hold up

A widely cited 2013 Inside Higher Ed article said the impact of these votes "seems minimal". One example was NYU, whose board issued a unanimous statement backing John Sexton after the arts and sciences faculty voted against him. The article called that reaction "not unusual." It also named Saint Louis University's Lawrence Biondi as a president still in office after such a vote.

Within months, both had announced they were leaving. Biondi, who had led SLU since 1987, retired on Sept. 1, 2013, after no-confidence votes by both faculty and students. In August 2013, Sexton said he would leave NYU when his term ended in 2016.

Other well-known cases ended in exits too:

  • Harvard: The faculty voted against Lawrence Summers 218-185 in 2005. He announced his resignation in February 2006, shortly before a second vote was scheduled.
  • Columbia: Arts and Sciences faculty voted no confidence in Minouche Shafik in May 2024. She resigned effective Aug. 14.
  • Brandeis: Ronald Liebowitz announced his resignation two days after faculty leaders confirmed the vote had narrowly passed.
  • Nebraska-Lincoln: Chancellor Rodney Bennett resigned unexpectedly less than two months after the faculty's first-ever no-confidence vote.

93.1%: When a board stands firm

The other half of the record matters too. When a board really backs its president, the president often stays.

At Indiana University, 93.1% of faculty at the meeting voted no confidence in President Pamela Whitten in April 2024. Two years later, trustees gave her a $100,000 raise and a $250,000 bonus.

At West Virginia University, the board said it "unequivocally supports" Gordon Gee after a 2023 faculty vote against him. Gee left on schedule when his contract ended in 2025, not early.

So the board's backing at Cornell matters. It's also exactly what NYU's board said in 2013.

75-50: Where Cornell's vote fits

Cornell's senate passed the resolution 75-50, with five abstentions. That's 60% of the votes cast. It's also 75 of the senate's 135 members, or about 56%, and the senate represents a faculty of more than 3,000.

Nietzel told the Chronicle that these votes are often "overwhelmingly lopsided." In his view, Cornell's roughly three-to-two margin, plus the goodwill Kotlikoff has built over more than 25 years at Cornell, suggests he could keep his job if he wants to. That's an expert's judgment, not data. Narrow margins haven't always saved presidents: Summers lost by about 54% to 46%, and the Brandeis vote passed narrowly too.

The pressure at Cornell also goes beyond the vote. The campus AAUP chapter said the senate had never taken so significant a step in its 56-year history, and it called for new leadership. A group of senior women STEM faculty called for his resignation. More than 260 faculty signed a separate open letter. During the debate, Kotlikoff argued that replacing him would do little to solve complex problems and asked for more time.

What happens next is up to the trustees, and no one can know yet whether their support will hold. History says trustee backing often protects a president. It also says that "the board fully supports the president" has, more than once, come shortly before an exit.