Conservatives with honorary degrees beware: Indoctrination facilities known as higher education institutions are taking their sheepskin proclamations back. Real students – the very woke ones, anyway – are petitioning to revoke the gift for disagreeing with their views and ideology. This is what happens when you raise a few generations to receive a blue ribbon for sitting on the bench.
If one is into the pomp and circumstance of an honorary degree, perhaps this turn of events is distasteful. Universities confer worthless documents to recognize people for their perceived achievements (fame) and contributions to society (please show up and bring us national attention). Recipients need no qualifications – like being a graduate of that or any university, for example – to receive the gift. Much like Taylor Swift, who hasn’t attended any higher education since graduating high school but has an NYU degree in a box somewhere in storage.
Did Anyone Get Invited to Prom?
The rush to rescind seems to have begun with Bill Cosby. The comedian and trailblazer for minorities started in the 1960s, but the #MeToo had the comedian’s 60 honorary degrees up for review. Only one college, Sisseton Wahpeton College, issued this vague statement when explaining why they would not snatch the man’s unearned degree: “While his alleged sexual improprieties are in the national headlines and we see those same headlines, too, his predicament, real or not, is not of any interest to our people way out here in South Dakota.”
And then Trump was elected president. No time was wasted in removing any of his five honorary degrees: Lehigh College, Wagner College, Robert Gordon University, and two from Liberty University. The Liberty University honor still stands. And being pals with number 45 has also cost America’s Mayor, Rudy Giuliano, several achievements granted for handling the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks on New York City. No one likes him anymore since he helped investigate Trump’s 2020 election claims.
But then you have crazies believing if there is a relationship to the former president, anyone who did graduate with a degree – after earning said degree – should be stripped of that achievement and drug through the Swamp after being tarred and feathered. The woke college student is flat-out mean. Those on that chopping block include these Harvard graduates: Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), former White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany, and Rep. Dan Crenshaw (R-TX).
Film producer Brian Grazer at the University of Southern California 2022 commencement ceremony accepting his honorary degrees in Los Angeles (Photo by Brittany Murray/MediaNews Group/Long Beach Press-Telegram via Getty Images)
How unpopular and isolated does one have to feel to want to destroy a career built upon the foundation of a Harvard degree? In the letter students sent to trustees, they claimed a “Harvard degree is a privilege, not a right.”
Honorary Degrees are Laughable
This peculiar practice of awarding honorary degrees began at Oxford University. So, yes, we can blame them for this latest ridiculousness in the US. Oxford granted the first recorded honorary degree to Lionel Woodville, Dean of Exeter, in either 1478 or 1479, but no one can pin down the date. Harvard followed suit in 1753 and gave the first of many to Founding Father Benjamin Franklin.
But some higher secular institutions have never regularly awarded the faux sheepskin. For example, Andrew Dickinson White, co-founder of Cornell University, was confident that honorary degrees would diminish the value of actual degrees earned by students. Cornell hasn’t bestowed one since its second commencement ceremony. Similarly, Stanford University and MIT do not feel the need for such egregious financial and attention-getting behavior.
Let’s face it: When Southampton College in New York issued a doctorate of amphibious letters to Kermit the Frog in 1996, why would anyone want that unearned distinction?
