University President Michael Lovell and Provost Daniel Myers announced Oct. 24 that the Board of Trustees approved their resolution to immediately rescind Bill Cosby’s 2013 honorary degree.
The announcement was made in an email to the Marquette community. The decision comes several years after multiple women brought up allegations of sexual assault committed by Cosby, who recently admitted to drugging women he wanted to have sexual relations with.
“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 said in the email.
Marquette publicly cut ties with Cosby in December 2014. The comedian delivered the university’s 2013 commencement address, despite public knowledge of the allegations brought against him. Lovell did not start working as Marquette’s president until 2014, and Myers started working as provost this year.
“Over the past several weeks, we’ve had extensive conversations with campus leaders and faculty members who showed overwhelming support for the action our board took today,” Lovell and Myers said in the email.
Other universities have also distanced themselves from Cosby. Fordham University announced today that they rescinded his honorary degree, Berklee College of Music no longer awards a scholarship in his name and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Cosby’s alma mater, had him step down as honorary co-chairman of a $300 million fundraising campaign.
