Colleges that honored Cosby face tough question
The honorary doctor of humane letters degree was awarded to Cosby during a spirit rally on September 4, 2003, at Floyd Casey Stadium with more than 20,000 Baylor students, faculty, staff and Central Texans in attendance.
DePauw University in Indiana has not rescinded the honorary degree it awarded Richard Nixon in 1957, years before his role in Watergate as the U.S. president.
In 2004, Wilkes gave Cosby an honorary doctorate for his commitment to education and entertainment, social and civil justice.
In the last two weeks alone, Fordham University, Marquette University and Brown University revoked the honors Cosby received at the respective institutions, according to The New York Times.
But the university says it’s become clear Cosby’s conduct doesn’t live up to those values, or to the school’s.
Yale said in a statement that it had never rescinded an honorary degree, without elaborating on its reasoning. “It is against this backdrop that Baylor’s Board of Regents has chose to take this action”.
Snow said that numerous women who participated sensed an opportunity to educate others about the need to talk forthrightly about sexual assault.
A few schools say they do not want to condemn in the court of public opinion a man who has never been found guilty in a court of law, or even charged with a crime.
Spurred by allegations that Bill Cosby drugged and sexually assaulted more than 40 women, colleges around the United States have been rescinding honorary degrees given the comedian, The New York Times reports.
“We give out honorary degrees based on what we know at the time”, said Kimberly Alexander, vice president for institutional advancement at Talladega College in Alabama, where Cosby was honored in 1992, “and at the time he was everybody’s favorite dad”.
In July, President Obama said there was no way to revoke Cosby’s Presidential Medal of Freedom because of sexual misconduct allegations.
That same month, Disney World removed a statue of Cosby, while the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce said his star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was there to stay.
Cosby has been recognized by dozens of schools over the past 30 years. A Cosby representative, Monique Pressley, declined to comment to The Associated Press about the NBC show.
But Yale, has not made such a call, even though students are petitioning for the university to do so.