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BU rescinds Bill Cosby's honorary degree
By adamg on Mon, 12/14/2015 - 12:53pm
Boston University's board of trustees has decided the comedian is no longer worthy of the honor he got just last year.
The Board's decision was based on a determination, supported by Mr. Cosby's sworn deposition testimony, that his treatment of women has brought significant and lasting discredit upon himself and is inconsistent with the University's mission and values. Mr. Cosby's admitted conduct, which the University learned about only after awarding him the degree, demonstrates that his character fails to reflect the integrity and virtues that the University values and esteems in members of its community, and in those persons the University holds up for this particular honor.
H/t Jason.
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Comments
yeah good for you BU
http://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/blog/2015/04/28/bu-rape-survivor-letter/
you've wiped the slate totally clean
So
It's like the academic version of the Zen question: if you revoke a meaningless degree, does it mean something?
(Also, Brown did this in August, what's with the delay?)
rightfully so
rightfully so
Good!
As an alum., I say "Right on"!
Now if we can get
institutions of higher learning to permanently do away with the complete and utter nonsense of issuing honorary degrees.
write to your local politicians
if you want state run schools to stop doing that
that will not help you in BU's case
That's a brilliant idea Roadman
In fact, I think you deserve an honorary degree for proposing it.
...
The degrees won't stop. They are a fundraising tool. The hope is the recipient will pony over some cash as a result (or gave a donation expecting one) and it can be used as a ploy when contacting Alumni who might like the recipient. I agree they are total bullshit but they'll never go away.
MIT had a policy of not
MIT had a policy of not awading honorary degrees. Then they circumvented their policy by awading Salman Rushdie an honorary professorship.
Jell-o Guy
I don't BC cares at this point. This is all for show.
BC?
Did I miss something?
I was lazy and used his
I was lazy and used his initials....sorry about that.
Ohhh
I thought you meant that other institution of higher learning with Boston in its name, and was confused. Sorry!
Setting aside the issues in
Setting aside the issues in this particular case, how is possible to retroactively take away something you gave? It kind of violates the concept of giving.
as someone above said
Honorary degrees are basically for prestige - for the institution as well as for the celebrity receiving it. Prestige, in the case of hackademia, equals money. In this case, BU decided that it was damaging their prestige (i.e., their ability to bring in money) not to rescind the degree from Cosby. Were they right to take it away? Yes, I'd say so. Did they do it for reasons that make some of us, at least, pretty cynical? You bet.
Nope
Non-honorary degrees are frequently revoked: there are PHDs taken away because it was later discovered that a dissertation was plagiarized, BAs rescinded because it was discovered that the graduate lied on their application, and so on. There was one famous case in West Virginia where the governor's daughter had her MBA revoked when it was discovered that she had bribed professors and administrators (a scandal that took down the university's president).
There are some protections, but generally a degree can be rescinded if they were obtained by fraud or otherwise due to deceiving the university. It's a bit different with honorary degrees, of course, but revoking the Doctorate of Humane Letters because the recipient is a vicious rapist strikes me as entirely appropriate.
And so near to Christmas, too! Does BU have no shame?!
Cosmetic
I don't see what particular good this does.
Silber is Next.
He's dead, Jim
.
when did that ever slow him down, Bones?