Cosby Rapist & Academic Fraud?
#1
An alleged university where alleged rapist Bill Cosby allegedly "earned" masters and doctorate degrees now is having second thoughts.



Quote:Another college moves to erase ties with Bill Cosby
By Associated Press
November 27, 2014 | 4:26pm

[Image: bill_cosby_102213813.jpg?w=720&h=480&crop=1]
Bill Cosby Photo: Storms Media Group


BOSTON — The University of Massachusetts-Amherst has cut ties with alumnus Bill Cosby amid allegations by women accusing him of sexual assault.

A university spokesman told the Boston Globe on Wednesday university officials had asked Cosby to step down as an honorary co-chairman of their $300 million fundraising campaign and Cosby agreed.

Cosby received a master’s degree and a doctorate in education from the university. He and his wife donated several hundred thousand dollars to the university.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley sent a letter to the university urging it to cut ties with Cosby.

Coakley says while Cosby hadn’t been criminally charged his association sends the wrong message when the state is focused on the prevention of campus sexual assault.

Cosby’s lawyer has called the allegations “unsubstantiated” and “discredited.”


Life experience degrees and "flexible" courses???  Sounds like high school dropout Cosby was the recipient of some regionally accredited gold standard largesse.  Do we dare use the M word????


Quote:From Dropout to Doctorate: A Bill Cosby Educational Timeline

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Quote:"My father said, 'Junior, it takes a man to play football, but any fool can get up on the stage and make an ass of himself.'"
That's Bill Cosby, talking about college, comedy and football in a terrific interview with George Vecsey

I knew Bill Cosby had a Ph.D. in Education (or an Ed.D., as it's called), but I didn't know that before that he had been a high school dropout. He quit high school and "wound up in the Navy, earning an equivalency diploma, tending to the wounded in a military hospital," says Vecsey.

Then Cosby went to Temple University, at age 24. Two years later he quit football and then quit college, too, but wore "a cherry-red Temple sweatshirt while working clubs in Philadelphia and New York." Cosby then was "awarded his bachelor's degree by Temple in 1971," according to the Encyclopedia of African American History. (The same source says he joined the Navy after failing the 10th grade.) 

So let's break this all down into a Bill Cosby educational timeline:

1937: Bill Cosby born
1956: Bill Cosby fails 10th grade at Germantown High School in Philadelphia
1956: Joins the U.S. Navy; earns his high school equivalency degree
1960: Honorably discharged from the U.S. Navy
1961: Enters Temple University (also in Philadelphia) on an athletic scholarship
1961: Letters as a fullback on the Temple football team and runs track
1963: Quits Temple to do comedy full-time
1963: Does his first guest spot on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson
1964: Releases his first comedy album: Bill Cosby Is a Very Funny Fellow... Right!
1965: Begins starring on TV show I Spy
1971: Is awarded a bachelor's degree by Temple University
1971: Joins the cast of the educational TV show The Electric Company (through 1973)
1972: Master's degree in Education from the University of Massachusetts
1976: Submits doctoral thesis
1976: Ed.D. from the University of Massachusetts

Bill Cosby's doctoral thesis was titled "An Integration of the Visual Media via Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids into the Elementary School Curriculum as a Teaching Aid and Vehicle to Achieve Increased Learning." It's 142 pages long, with another 100 pages of bibliography and appendices.

Many sources (including the usually reliable Museum of Broadcast Communications) claim that Cosby earned his doctorate from UMass in 1977. However, 1976 is the correct year. His typed doctoral thesis is dated September 1976, and on its website the university repeatedly says he earned the degree in 1976, calling him "Dr. Bill Cosby (Ed.D. 1976)."

It doesn't sound like Cosby went to school full-time (or even part-time) to get his degrees. His bachelor's from Temple came in 1971, years after he left school. Temple awarded him the degree on the basis of life experience, and who can blame them? All Cosby had done after leaving school was become an international comedy star, earn three Emmy Awards for acting in I Spy, etc, etc. Naturally they wanted to recognize that and claim him as their own.

His grad degrees were also legitimately given, not honorary, but the details of how and when exactly he squeezed in classes are a bit elusive. On the first page of his doctoral thesis, Cosby thanks his advisor Dr. Norma Jean Anderson, saying "I am especially indebted for her faith in my doing graduate work, to the extent that she travelled to New York to personally recruit me into the graduate program."

I wonder if it's too much to assume from that phrase that Dr. Anderson saw an opportunity to boost the profile of UMass by recruiting an education-minded celebrity, and did so with a promise that the school would be flexible with courses and work around his schedule?

Here were some of the items on Cosby's work schedule from 1971-76:




  • Appeared regularly on The Electric Company and Sesame Street (starting 1971)
  • Created and starred in Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, the iconic Saturday morning show (starting 1972)
  • Created and starred in the short-lived primetime series The New Bill Cosby Show (1972)
  • Created and starred in the short-lived primetime variety series Cos (1976)
  • Starred in the feature films Uptown Saturday Night (1974), Let's Do It Again (1975) and Mother, Jugs and Speed (1976)
So it's clear Cosby wasn't hanging out on campus too much. None of which is to say Bill Cosby didn't earn his degrees or doesn't deserve them. Even if Cosby got an occasional free pass here and there on the way to his degrees, how rare is that? (He certainly wouldn't be the first football player in college history to get a degree without completing every last course.) Also, he donated $23 million to Spellman College in 1993, and he deserves a Ph.D. for that alone.

But others have gotten tetchy about Cosby's degrees, it turns out. Author and academic Michael Eric Dyson presented the story this way in his 2006 book Is Bill Cosby Right?:





Quote:[Cosby] dropped out of high school after he flunked the tenth grade three times. He enlisted in the navy, where he got his GED, and then enrolled at Temple University, where he dropped out to pursue a show business career. His unfinished bachelor's degree from Temple was eventually bestowed on him because of "life experience." Cosby enrolled as a part-time doctoral student at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, which awarded him the Ed.D. degree in 1977 for a dissertation on Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids. 

But not even that degree was unsullied by controversy: A professor who served on Cosby's dissertation committee, Reginald Damerell, said that Cosby hardly took a class -- and that he got course credit for appearing on Sesame Street and The Electric Company, "and wrote a dissertation that analyzed the impact of his show." Damerell concluded that degrees like Cosby's "do not attest to genuine academic achievement. They are empty credentials."
Dyson then backtracks a little, saying that Damerell's conclusion is "harsh and unfair," but that doesn't stop Dyson from putting those skeptical quote marks around "life experience." He also notes the "ironic route Cosby has traveled to become nearly as acclaimed for his educational pedigree as for his comedic genius."

Dyson's book attacks Cosby for blaming black parents and kids for their failures -- "It's a good thing Cosby didn't have Bill Cosby around to discourage him from achieving his goals," he says -- so his comments on Cosby's education might be taken with a grain of salt.

His statement that Cosby flunked tenth grade three times, though, accounts for why Cosby was 18 or 19 when he joined the Navy in 1956.

The other thing that stands out in that educational timeline is how rapidly Cosby rose in comedy. He gets out of the Navy in 1960, starts school in 1961, and two years later he's doing standup for Johnny Carson. The next year he has a hit comedy album, and the year after that he's starring in I Spy and winning Emmy Awards.  That's impressive.

As a final side note, Cosby's wife Camille earned her own doctorate in Education from the University of Massachusetts in 1992. So there are two Doctor Cosbys in the house. 


People have been calling BS on Cosby's "education" since at least 1985--nearly as long as people have been calling him a rapist.


Quote:November 18, 1985  Vol. 24  No. 21
A New Book Says Doctorates in Education—Including Actor Bill Cosby's—Are a Joke
By Brenda Eady
 
When comedian Bill Cosby received his Doctor of Education degree from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst on a fine May day in 1977, he was the star of the commencement. The press took photos as Cosby, wearing his academic robes and later smoking a congratulatory cigar, received his diploma from the chancellor of the university. Now a disgruntled former professor at the university is calling for a second ceremony. "I think it would be wonderful if Cosby staged a media event similar to the one that took place when he earned his doctorate," says Reginald G. Damerell. "Only this time he would give back the degree to show that he finally realizes it stands for nothing. I hope that Bill Cosby would raise consciousness about how lousy schools of education are."

In his new book, Education's Smoking Gun (Freundlich Books, $17.95), Damerell, 64, claims that Cosby's Ed.D.—like many an advanced education doctorate—is a sham. "Everybody knows Cosby," says Damerell, a U. Mass. associate professor for 12 years before he left in 1982. "He just happens to illustrate the point. He earned his degree much as a lot of other people do. It was a ridiculous situation."

Damerell says that Cosby, who had dropped out of Temple University before completing his undergraduate degree in phys ed, was recruited personally by the assistant dean of the U. Mass. education school. He entered a program designed to award advanced education degrees to "mature students," some of whom hadn't attended or completed college. According to Damerell, Cosby did not take semester-length courses. Instead he attended "at least one" weekend-long seminar and received credits for appearances on TV shows like Sesame Street and The Electric Company. Cosby's 242-page doctoral dissertation discussed ways that teachers could use his Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids animated TV shows as educational tools. "Cosby could have given up show business and spent six years at the school and not know any more than he did anyhow," Damerell says. "Unlike chemistry, education has no body of knowledge, so it doesn't matter how long you spend on it."

A member of Cosby's doctoral committee for five months, Damerell claims that in that time the only full board meeting on Cosby's dissertation took place during a sumptuous meal at the entertainer's Massachusetts home. Damerell says Cosby took the group on a tour of his 16-room, 135-year-old restored farmhouse, including an admiring visit to a closet filled with fur coats belonging to his wife, Ca-mille, and drawer after drawer of Cosby's shirts. "It was a scene right out of The Great Gatsby," notes Damerell. "We did not discuss education," Damerell says, but that wasn't unusual. "All the time I was at the school we never discussed anything basic about education with anybody."

A longtime advertising copywriter whose 1968 book about integration, Triumph in a White Suburb, led to his U. Mass. faculty appointment, Damerell claims that Cosby's degree typifies the empty schooling given many education majors. He says that thousands of badly educated teachers are undermining elementary and high school instruction across the country. Holding a copy of Cosby's dissertation, Damerell says, "A dissertation is supposed to be a contribution to human knowledge. This isn't. And I would say that 99 percent of [education] dissertations aren't either."

Cosby, who has won acclaim for his ability to reach young people through TV, has no comment on the charges. But Louis Fischer, acting dean of the University of Massachusetts School of Education when Cosby received his doctorate, defends the entertainer's effort. Cosby's dissertation, Fischer says, was "a very respectable piece of work." Fischer adds that U. Mass. at the time was trying "to get away from the historic rigidities of schools of education" and that there were "at least 50 other students at that time who also received Ed.D. degrees through such nontraditional methods."

That's partly what makes Damerell so angry. His wife, Edna, has worked in a real estate office to support them since his disgusted departure from the school. He has no plans to return to education or to moderate his outspoken views. "You can see I have paid a price," says Damerell, who now lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Bronxville, N.Y. "But I recommend that education schools be abolished. There's no way to save them."


Now the dominoes are starting to fall, who else will be taking back their degrees?  Here's the list of alleged honorary degrees bestowed by alleged gold standard institutions on the alleged rapist:

Quote:Honorary degrees


Cosby has received honorary degrees from more than a dozen colleges and universities:




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#2
Hey hey hey!  Be careful where you put them Pudding Pops!

Quote:Spelman College Suspends Bill Cosby Professorship

[Image: Cosbys-Spelman-AP.JPG]
by Kipp Jones 16 Dec 2014


Comedian Bill Cosby has had his endowed professorship suspended by Spelman College in Atlanta, Georgia, after mounting accusations that he drugged and sexually assaulted more than 20 women.  

The college released a statement in regards to a program that was established in the name of Cosby and his wife, Camille, saying it would be suspended, reports Fox News.  

The statement from Spelman said the situation "prevents us from continuing to meet these objectives fully and the program will be suspended until the goals can again be met.”  

Spelman College is the second school to disassociate itself from Cosby after his alma mater, the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, cut ties with him in late November.  

The comedian has had numerous live shows cancelled since the accusations against him surfaced, which also led NBC to cancel a planned television project with him last month.

The United States Navy also stripped Cosby of his title as honorary Chief Petty Officer in early December.  

A statement, via Navy Times, read:  


Quote:The Navy is taking this action because allegations against Mr. Cosby are very serious and are in conflict with the Navy's core values of honor, courage and commitment.  

Both Cosby, and his wife Camille broke their silence this week in separate statements, denying the allegations.
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#3
I suspect that getting laid by Cosby had been a matter of personal pride among the 24 plus sudden complainants. Then they find they had been used like a public urinal and get all pissed off. Maybe one might have contacted police if their story was true. None out of 24.

Cosby's degree is no more fake than a lot. He appears to actually have written something. MLK showed a keen sense of copying.
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#4
(01-16-2015, 09:50 AM)Ben Johnson Wrote: I suspect that getting laid by Cosby had been a matter of personal pride among the 24 plus sudden complainants.  Then they find they had been used like a public urinal and get all pissed off.  Maybe one might have contacted police if their story was true.  None out of 24.

Cosby's degree is no more fake than a lot.  He appears to actually have written something.  MLK showed a keen sense of copying.


The women were adults who went with a man who had money, power, and star clout. After not becoming his lady and getting some of his money they, in latter years, pile on and whine and cry. Too damn bad. They took their shot and failed. They tried to trade sexual favors for money and power, much like any other whores. If they had a real case they would have gone to the police back then.

As for his life experience, light degrees. He did as much work as many others have done at the so called accredited colleges. I have no problem with what he was allowed to do.  John Bear also handed out degrees heavy on life experience and strongly supported schools that used that system. He thought it a good idea, BACK THEN. I just wish others, less wealthy and famous, had the same options. Of course once they did. The many state approved colleges allowed a lot of life experience credit. Too much? maybe, who's to say. But I would look at it this way. Cosby is obviously an educated, intelligent man. Others fit the same mold. If a man 50-60 years old has the knowledge and experience of another who has a traditional degree, who is to say that that man should not be able to prove that knowledge and skill and be recognized for it by being granted a degree. Life experience???? If it is of value, and I think it is, it should be noticed. It's just another way of accumulating knowledge and wisdom. A degree for this is no worse than a kid taking multiple choice tests and claiming skills.  Successful experience is a measure of learning and skill.  
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#5
Hey Catholics, the Pope is in town, better clean up the act a little.  Unlike perv priests, you can't just transfer perv degree holders to another parish.

Quote:Fordham, Marquette rescind honorary degrees they gave Cosby
By MARK KENNEDY
Sep. 24, 2015 9:04 PM EDT
 
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NEW YORK (AP) — Fordham and Marquette universities on Thursday rescinded from Bill Cosby honorary degrees amid allegations from women accusing the comedian of sexual assault.

In Milwaukee, Marquette's Board of Trustees approved a resolution rescinding an honorary degree presented to Cosby in 2013. The degree was immediately rescinded, the school said.

Fordham's Board of Trustees also voted to take back an honorary doctor of fine arts degree given to him in 2001.

Both Jesuit schools said it is the first time they have rescinded an honorary degree.

Cosby admitted having extramarital relationships with several women, including some who now accuse him of sexual assault. He has never been charged with a crime.

"As a Jesuit university, Fordham could no longer stand behind the degree it had bestowed upon Mr. Cosby, hence this unprecedented action," the New York City university said.

Marquette President Michael Lovell and Provost Daniel Myers issued a letter to the university community after the vote that said, "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."

Fordham and Marquette are the latest schools to distance themselves from the comedian, joining Central State University, Temple University and Spelman College.
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#6
Question "Is Cosby a Rapist & Academic Fraud?"

Answer "Cosby is not a rapist"
Reply
#7
Quote:[Image: Bill%20Cosby_0.jpg?itok=QXuwSur6]
Bill Cosby at Temple University

Dishonored

October 1, 2015
By Josh Logue

Three universities have rescinded honorary degrees they awarded to Bill Cosby. Now the question becomes: What will happen to the 23 he still has?

More than 30 women have come forward to accuse the comedian and former television star of sexual assault, many only in the last year. As the accusations piled up, colleges, especially those with close ties to Cosby, reacted in different ways and at different paces.

High Point University removed Cosby from its Board of Advisors in November 2014. The University of Massachusetts-Amherst asked him to step down as co-chairman of the college’s fund-raising campaign later that month. And Spelman College ended a Cosby-endowed professorship in July.

Other colleges canceled speeches and took his name off buildings and programs. But until recently, even universities that had distanced themselves from Cosby -- like Berklee College of Music, which removed his name from a scholarship -- hadn’t gone so far as to rescind one of his more than two dozen honorary degrees.

Fordham University and Marquette University became the first to do so last week, and Brown University followed suit several days later. All three universities pointed to statements Cosby made in a 2005 deposition that The New York Times excerpted in July as a deciding factor. In that testimony, Cosby admitted to giving women drugs before sex, though he claimed the encounters were consensual.

“It has become clear, by his own admission in legal depositions that became public this summer, that Mr. Cosby has engaged in conduct with women that is contrary to the values of Brown and the qualities for which he was honored by the university in 1985,” Brown University President Christina Paxson said in a written statement. “It is particularly troubling as our university community continues to confront the very real challenges of sexual violence on our campus and in society at large, and had it been known to the Fellows in 1985, an honorary degree lauding the qualities quoted above would not have been conferred.”

Of the three, Brown was the only university to previously rescind an honorary degree, but it did so only once and almost 100 years ago -- in 1918, the college annulled the Doctor of Laws degree it had given to Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States from 1908 to 1917. Then college President William Faunce explained that “while he was ambassador of the Imperial German Government to the United States and while the nations were still at peace, he was guilty of conduct dishonorable alike in a gentleman and a diplomat.”

Despite the small spate of rescinded honorary degrees awarded to Cosby, a handful of colleges said they have no plans to rescind their own.

“We don’t rescind the degrees,” Michael Roth, president of Wesleyan University, said to the student newspaper in April. “We don’t go backwards.” Wesleyan awarded Cosby an honorary doctorate in 1987.

“We don’t think that everyone we’ve given an honorary degree to is a perfect person,” Roth added. “On the other hand, we also don’t expect to honor someone who has been accused of serious crimes. So I don’t think we need to change the policy. We need to be prudent about who we give these awards to.”

That interview took place before any college had rescinded one of Cosby’s degrees, but a university spokesperson told Inside Higher Ed that “our position hasn’t changed.”

In fact, Wesleyan, the University of Notre Dame, the College of William and Mary, and Carnegie Mellon University all said they have no plans to rescind Cosby’s honorary degrees.

“William and Mary bestows honorary degrees based on information known at the time when they are conferred, and these awards do not constitute a standing endorsement of an individual’s moral character,” said Brian Whitson, a college spokesman.

Eight more colleges, though, said they are actively considering or discussing the issue. It’s on the governing board’s agenda at Amherst College and in front of the Faculty Senate at Baylor University. Colgate University and Drew University both said a decision was forthcoming. Berklee College of Music, Haverford College, Oberlin College and the University of Connecticut said they are discussing or considering the matter. And Boston University is “monitoring developments,” according to a spokesperson.

Another three institutions -- Yale University, Virginia Commonwealth University and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute -- said they have never rescinded an honorary degree.

“Cosby received an honorary degree from VCU in 2008 based on what was known at the time,” said Michael Porter, a spokesman for the university. “We have no precedent for revoking honorary degrees since they carry no special rights or privileges.”

Swarthmore College and the University of Pennsylvania declined to comment.

Five more institutions did not respond to a request for comment: West Chester University, the University of Southern California, the University of Cincinnati, Paine College and Sisseton Wahpeton College.
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#8
Lehigh joins the party.

Quote:Honorary Degree Rescinded

Pursuant to a resolution of the Board of Trustees, Lehigh University has rescinded the honorary degree bestowed upon William H. Cosby, Jr. by the University in 1987. In sworn deposition testimony, Mr. Cosby admitted under oath to behavior that is antithetical to the values of Lehigh University and inconsistent with the character and high standards that honorary degree recipients are expected to exemplify. 
 
By:
Posted on: Wednesday, October 14, 2015
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#9
Instead of the Swami's Daily Invocation we have Cosby's Daily Revocation. Today, it's a twofor!

Quote:Tufts University And Goucher College Revoke Degrees Given To Bill Cosby
"We must take a consistent stand against sexual misconduct and cannot accept Cosby's conduct as consistent with our values."
[Image: 25ef35a28cc79a00624f2d8db5827b73-partner-ap.png] By WILLIAM J. KOLE
Posted: 10/15/2015 01:47 PM EDT | Edited: 10/15/2015 02:07 PM EDT


BOSTON (AP) — Two more colleges announced Thursday they have rescinded honorary degrees given to Bill Cosby, adding to a growing list of schools distancing themselves from the entertainer embroiled in allegations of sexual assault.

Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts, said it withdrew an honorary doctorate of arts it conferred on Cosby in 2000, along with an award given in 2011 for excellence in children's media.

Baltimore's Goucher College, meanwhile, said it decided to revoke an honorary degree it gave to Cosby when he was commencement speaker in 2001.

Both schools said they had notified Cosby of their actions.

Court documents unsealed in July show the 78-year-old Cosby admitting extramarital relationships with several women, some of whom accuse him of sexual assault.

Cosby has never been charged with a crime.
[Image: 561fe4cd1400006f003c8580.jpeg]

Thursday's revocations came a day after Pennsylvania's Lehigh University rescinded an honorary degree given in 2005.

Tufts' board of trustees said in a statement it decided to withdraw the honor after concluding there was "a substantial basis" to discredit the accomplishments for which Cosby was recognized. The board said it took the step after "lengthy and serious consideration."

Tufts President Anthony Monaco said in an email to the university community that Cosby has shown "a lack of character and integrity" that does not represent the school's values.

Goucher President Jose Antonio Bowen said he and that school's trustees met Wednesday and "unanimously decided that Cosby's admitted actions are in direct violation of values Goucher holds dear, including our community principles of respect, communication, and responsibility."

"We must take a consistent stand against sexual misconduct and cannot accept Cosby's conduct as consistent with our values," Bowen said.

"Had this information been known at the time, I am confident Goucher would not have awarded this honor," he said.

[Image: 561fe4fd1400002200c7a0b0.jpeg]

Lehigh said earlier this week that Cosby's admitted behavior was "inconsistent with the character and high standards" expected of honorees.

Several other schools, including Fordham, Marquette, Baylor and Pennsylvania's Wilkes University, previously pulled their Cosby degrees. In December, amid widening allegations, Cosby resigned from the board of trustees of Temple University in Philadelphia.

The University of Massachusetts-Amherst also has cut ties with Cosby, who earned a master's degree and a doctorate in education there.
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#10
Cosby's Daily Revocation: Amherst

Quote:October 19, 2015 5:19 p.m.
Amherst College Rescinds Bill Cosby’s Honorary Degree
By Devon Ivie

Amherst College has rescinded the honorary doctorate it awarded to Bill Cosby in 1999, Pete Mackey, chief communications officer for the school, confirmed to Vulture Monday afternoon. The motion was resolved and passed by Amherst's Board of Trustees on Saturday, October 17. In a statement, the university announced, "The Board of Trustees of Amherst College hereby rescinds the honorary degree awarded to Bill Cosby in 1999. The Board believes the violation of the values for which it was awarded is clear and exceptional." This is the first time in Amherst's history that it has rescinded an honorary degree. Amherst's disavowal follows recent news that Tufts University, Goucher College, and Lehigh University also rescinded Cosby's honorary degrees. In late September, Marquette University, Fordham University, and Brown University did the same.
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