This, however, is social sanctioning – the form of justice that can and should happen when someone commits an egregious crime and isn’t held legally responsible for it. After months of waffling and denial of the veracity of Cosby’s victims’ claims, it’s good to see our culture rallying around these women.
Advertisement
Bill Cosby has one less degree to his name.
While Cosby seems to continually be accused of raping and/or sexually assaulting women over the years – which enhanced when he admitted to using Quaaludes back in the day – he’s now lost his honorary doctorate from Temple University.
In Milwaukee, Marquette’s Board of Trustees approved a resolution rescinding an honorary degree presented to Cosby in 2013.
Although the revocations are purely symbolic, they carry a certain significance in that they mark the first time that either university has rescinded an honorary degree, according to the Associated Press.
Fordham has never before rescinded an honorary degree.
Fordham University in New York and Marquette University in Wisconsin announced Thursday they had pulled the degrees given to the comedian to honor him.
Schmitt responded to Fordham’s decision in the letter addressed to the Rev. Joseph McShane, the university’s president, and made public by Cosby’s publicist, David Brokaw.
Since then, however, Fordham said it has become clear that Cosby’s actions are “both unambiguously dishonorable and have a deep impact”, pointing out that, “By his own admission, Mr. Cosby’s sexual exploitation of women was premeditated and ongoing”.
Marquette President Michael Lovell and Provost Daniel Myers issued a letter to the university community after the vote there that said, “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”.
Advertisement
It’s just one fallen piece in Cosby’s crumbling empire and reputation since more than 40 women came forward to accuse him of rape or sexual misconduct. “Equally appalling is his longtime strategy of denigrating the reputations of women who accused him of such actions”, the board statement reads.
