Cosby’s Honorary Degree Is the First Yale Has Rescinded in 300-Plus Years
The decision highlights the pressure on universities to signal that they’re taking the issue of sexual abuse on campus seriously.
Yale has doled out more than 2,500 honorary degrees since it was founded in 1701. On Tuesday, Bill Cosby, who had an honorary doctorate of humane letters from the university—the kind awarded to people who have made “contributions to society”—conferred upon him in 2003, became the first person in the institution’s history to have his rescinded.
The decision was “based on a
