Fordham University Takes Back Bill Cosby’s Honorary Doctorate

After Spelman College severed ties with Bill Cosby, another institution is following suit. Fordham University in New York has decided to rescind the honorary doctorate they presented Cosby with in 2001. This would be the first time the university has ever taken back a degree. 

It was a unanimous decision by the Board of Trustees that led to the school taking back a degree for the first time in history. According to the Fordham President Joseph M. McShane, for something like this to happen “a recipient’s actions would have to be both unambiguously dishonorable and have a deep impact.” 

Students and faculty received a letter with the news directly from McShane. “The University has taken this extraordinary step in light of Mr. Cosby’s now-public court depositions that confirm many of the allegations made against him. By his own admission, Mr. Cosby’s sexual exploitation of women was premeditated and ongoing,” it read. “Equally appalling is his longtime strategy of denigrating the reputations of women who accused him of such actions.”

“That Mr. Cosby was willing to drug and rape women for his sexual gratification, and further damage those same women’s reputations and careers to obscure his guilt, hurt not only his victims, but all women, and is beyond the pale.”

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