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Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., announced Friday it would rescind and revoke an honorary degree it gave President Donald Trump. The decision was made following the violent riots in the U.S. Capitol and years of pressure from faculty members and alumni. Wagner College in Staten Island, N.Y., also said Friday that its Board of Trustees voted to rescind an honorary degree it gave Trump.
“In a special session Thursday of the Executive Committee of the Lehigh University Board of Trustees, the members voted to rescind and revoke the honorary degree granted to Donald J. Trump in 1988. The full Board of Trustees affirmed the decision today,” the university wrote in a short statement Friday. A Lehigh spokesperson said officials would not provide any additional comment.
Wagner also did not provide additional comment beyond news of the board vote.
Faculty members and alumni for years pushed Lehigh to rescind Trump’s degree, arguing that the president’s behavior was incompatible with the university’s values. In 2018, a majority of faculty members, 83 percent, at the private university supported a motion to rescind the president’s honor. The university's Board of Trustees twice in the past voted not to take action on Trump’s honorary degree.
Trump was awarded an honorary degree from Wagner in 2004. He still holds two honorary degrees from Liberty University in Lynchburg, Va., awarded in 2012 and 2017. The president also previously held an honorary degree from Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, but it was revoked in 2015 after Trump announced his intention to ban all Muslims from entering the United States.
