Bill Cosby Stripped of Honorary Doctorates From Temple University and More

Temple University, where Bill Cosby long served as a leading public face and key fundraiser, said Friday it will rescind the honorary doctorate it awarded to the comedian in 1991 because he was convicted of sexually assaulting a former employee.

The Philadelphia university said its board of trustees accepted a recommendation Friday to rescind the degree, citing Thursday’s jury verdict finding him guilty of drugging and molesting a woman who managed the school’s women’s basketball team in 2004.

Cosby received a bachelor’s from Temple, which was among relatively few that waited to pull honors from Cosby until after the verdict. 

Temple Board of Trustees Chairman Patrick O’Connor previously said he would recuse himself from discussions on the honorary degree. O’Connor represented Cosby in 2005 when he first faced allegations of sexual assault.

Cosby served on the board for decades before resigning in 2014. Cosby almost never attended Temple board meetings, but he frequently turned out to support the school’s basketball teams, an interest that connected him with victim Andrea Constand.

Constand said she had socialized with Cosby and then sought him out for career advice before he later knocked her out with three blue pills he called “your friends” and then penetrated her with his fingers as she lay immobilized, unable to resist or say no.

Even before the verdict, more than 20 colleges and universities across the U.S. had revoked honorary degrees from Cosby in light of allegations against him. Ohio State University’s governing board pulled a 2001 degree from Cosby this month in the days leading up to his retrial.

Others joining Temple in revoking honors after the verdict include Johns Hopkins University, Carnegie Mellon University, Notre Dame, Boston College and Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut.