Marquette University in Milwaukee and Fordham University in New York City have announced today that they have rescinded the honorary degrees they gave comedian Bill Cosby.
Marquette presented Cosby with an honorary degree in 2013, but university president Michael R. Lovell and Daniel J. Myers announced that they have rescinded the degree immediately.
“By his own admission, Mr. Cosby engaged in behaviors that go entirely against our university’s mission and the Guiding Values we have worked so hard to instill on our campus,” Lovell and Myers wrote. “Every day, we live these values by challenging our students to integrate knowledge and faith into their real-life decisions in ways that will shape their lives. With those values in mind, let us all remember that the foundations on which our great university was built remain as important today as ever.”
TMZ reported that Fordham’s Board of Trustees met today to discuss Cosby and decided to take away the honorary doctorate presented to Cosby in 2001. It’s the first time the University decided to rescind an honorary degree.
“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,” the university said in a statement to students.
In July, Spelman College in Atlanta announced that it ended a professorship endowed by Cosby and his wife, CNN reported at the time.
Over 40 women have come forward to accuse Cosby of sexual assaulting and drugging them. Cosby did admit in a 2005 deposition that he did give young women drugs and had sex with them.
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