Taking its lead from Bounce TV, the network that chose to wait until Bill Cosby was definitely found guilty of sexual assault before pulling The Cosby Show reruns, Temple University has also decided to distance itself from its most famous alum following the results of Cosby’s trial. Cosby received an honorary doctorate from Temple in 1991 and served on its board of trustees for decades before resigning in 2014, and now Billboard is reporting that the university has finally decided to strip Cosby of that doctorate. Universities like Fordham and Marquette made similar moves to strip Cosby of honorary degrees years ago, but Temple apparently decided it was best to wait and see how this whole thing shook out before casting any judgement on the now-disgraced comedian.
That could be an understandable position for any other institution to take, but Temple’s hesitance is particularly egregious in this case because Andrea Constand, the woman Cosby has now been convicted of drugging and sexually molesting, was an employee of the university when the two of them met. Waiting until now indicates that Temple really wanted to trust Cosby over Constand, right up until the moment when it no longer had a choice.