More taint has been brought to Bill Cosby’s legacy, whose damage seems mighty irreparable at this point.
The disgraced television icon has just been stripped of his honorary doctorates he was awarded from Fordham University (2001) and Marquette (2013).
Reports Huffington Post:
On Thursday, members of the Board of Trustees unanimously agreed to pull the 78-year-old’s degree, marking the first time the school has done so in its 174-year history.
A rep for Fordham confirmed to The Huffington Post that the comedian’s degree was rescinded, explaining in a statement that the school “has taken this extraordinary step in light of Mr.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 numerous women.”
The statement continued: “A recipient’s actions would have to be both unambiguously dishonorable and have a deep impact. By his own admission, Mr. Cosby’s sexual exploitation of women was premeditated and ongoing. Equally appalling is his longtime strategy of denigrating the reputations of women who accused him of such actions.”
The school went on to say the fact that 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.”
Marquette also made an announcement in similar fashion, making it the first time the prestigious university also had to retrieve their honorary doctorates.
“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,” Marquette President Michael Lovell and Provost Daniel Myers wrote in a letter to the Marquette community after the Board of Trustees voted Thursday to rescind the degree.
“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,” the letter said.
Lovell later tweeted that he was proud of the university for “taking this important stand.”
Asked about the timing of the action, Marquette spokesman Brian Dorrington said the Board of Trustees’ met for the first time this academic year on Thursday.
Cosby has received 23 honorary doctorates from various educational institutions over the years. Will he have any left before he passes on?
—
Photo: FOX6
