Why do colleges revoke degrees?
Though it’s rare for colleges to revoke degrees, it happens. Many schools have policies in place to revoke a degree if a student is discovered to have earned it illegitimately, whether by plagiarism or any other form of academic misconduct. The University of Pennsylvania, for example, has a detailed policy in its student handbook on the process by which an undergraduate or graduate degree can be revoked, including plagiarism or research misconduct. Perhaps more common is when a school rescinds an honorary degree. Those symbolic degrees are usually given to celebrities, politicians and academics for accomplishments in their field. Schools typically revoke these for ethical reasons, crimes committed, offensive comments made or behavior that earned significant public backlash. Here are 20 examples of high-profile people who had a degree or honorary degree revoked.
Bill Cosby
Actor Bill Cosby was revered by many for his time as a stand-up comedian and his role starring as Cliff Huxtable on The Cosby Show. He was awarded numerous honorary degrees throughout his career as an entertainer, but many were revoked in 2018 after he was found guilty of felony charges of aggravated sexual assault. Though he still holds a bachelor of science degree from Temple University in Pennsylvania, the school stripped him of an honorary degree it awarded him in 1991 after he was charged with assaulting a Temple women’s basketball staffer in 2004. University of Pennsylvania, Johns Hopkins University in Maryland, Carnegie Mellon University in Pennsylvania and North Carolina A&T State University were among those that revoked Cosby’s honorary degrees. Cosby still has master’s and doctoral degrees from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst.
Donald Trump
President Donald Trump lost three honorary degrees long before he was convicted on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records. Two were revoked following the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, which led to his impeachment. His efforts elsewhere to overturn the 2020 election results led to an indictment in Georgia on numerous election interference charges. Trump received honorary degrees from Lehigh University in Pennsylvania in 1988, Wagner College in New York in 2004, Robert Gordon University in Scotland in 2010 and Liberty University in Virginia in 2012 and 2017. Robert Gordon revoked his degree in 2015 for statements “wholly incompatible with (its) values and ethos.” Now, all but Liberty have rescinded degrees. Forbes reported that University of Pennsylvania alumni pressured the school to revoke the bachelor’s degree Trump received in 1968, but that has not happened.
Charlie Rose
The University of the South in Tennessee revoked an honorary degree from former television journalist and talk show host Charlie Rose. That’s after initially refusing to do so despite outcry from students and others affiliated with the school. Rose was awarded the degree in 2016, but allegations surfaced in 2018 that he sexually assaulted several women over multiple years. The school had never revoked an honorary degree previously and claimed it had no process to do so. The board of the school, which is affiliated with the Episcopal Church, also wrote a letter advocating for forgiveness rather than condemning Rose, which further aggravated those in the university community, Inside Higher Ed reported. The board eventually created a process for revocations and, following backlash against its original response, the school officially rescinded the degree in 2018, IHE reported.
Sean “Diddy” Combs
Amid other allegations of sexual assault and physical violence, hip-hop artist and entertainment mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs had his honorary degree from Howard University in Washington, D.C., revoked in June 2024 when video was released of him attacking his then-girlfriend, singer Cassie Ventura, in a Los Angeles hotel. The school, which gave him the honorary degree in 2014, also announced it was discontinuing a scholarship program in his name and returning a $1 million donation he made to the school. Combs attended Howard for two years before dropping out in 1990. In addition to these allegations and dozens of civil lawsuits, Combs was taken into custody in September 2024 on federal charges of sex trafficking, racketeering and transportation to engage in prostitution, several months after federal authorities raided his properties in L.A. and Miami. The trial began in May 2025.
Andrey Bezrukov
In July 2010, Harvard University in Massachusetts revoked a graduate degree from Russian spy Andrey Bezrukov, who attended the school under the name Donald H. Heathfield, a deceased Canadian. Under the fake name, Bezrukov studied at the John F. Kennedy School of Government and graduated from the master’s in public administration program in 2000, the Harvard Crimson reported. Bezrukov pleaded guilty in federal court to acting as an unregistered agent and using a falsified name. “The Kennedy School usually severs its relationship with a student when it is discovered that the individual’s application contains inaccuracies,” the Harvard Crimson wrote. Bezrukov and his wife, Elena Vavilova, were deported in 2010. They had also pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit money laundering.
Heather Bresch
The academic record of pharmaceutical executive Heather Bresch came under scrutiny in 2007 when questions arose about the legitimacy of the MBA she claimed to have earned from West Virginia University. After Bresch was named the CEO of drugmaker Mylan in 2007, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette contacted the school to verify her credentials and later found that WVU awarded her the degree even though she allegedly completed just half of the necessary credits. The school reportedly flip-flopped on whether she had actually earned the MBA. Meanwhile, the newspaper discovered that political cronyism was a likely factor in her degree being awarded. Bresch was a high school classmate of then-WVU president Mike Garrison and daughter of then-West Virginia Gov. Joe Manchin III, Business Insider reported. The university found in 2008 that “Ms. Bresch did not earn an MBA at West Virginia University.”
Harvey Weinstein
In 2020, movie producer Harvey Weinstein was sentenced to 23 years in prison for sexual assault and harassment of several women in New York, though an appeals court ordered a retrial in 2024 due to errors in the trial. In 2023, he was sentenced to 16 years in a separate case in California where he was convicted of three charges, including rape. When the New York allegations surfaced in 2017, his alma mater University at Buffalo–SUNY rescinded the honorary degree it awarded him in 2000, saying in a statement that his “alleged and admitted conduct is inconsistent” with the school’s values and policies and that it “contradicts the spirit of the honorary degree.” Weinstein was also stripped of a medal that Harvard University awarded him for outstanding contributions to African American film, the New York Times reported.
Michael Flynn
Michael Flynn graduated from the University of Rhode Island in 1981 and eventually became a three-star general in the U.S. Army, also serving as director of the Defense Intelligence Agency under former president Barack Obama in 2012 and briefly as national security adviser for the first Trump administration. URI gave Flynn an honorary doctorate in 2014, but revoked it in 2022 after he pleaded guilty twice to “willfully and knowingly” lying to the FBI in exchange for a plea agreement, which is a felony, the Boston Globe reported. Flynn, who became a public supporter of Trump before his appointment as national security adviser, also reportedly made several controversial comments, including calling for the establishment of “one religion” in the country, which URI considered “a violation of the doctrine of religious freedom enshrined in the First Amendment of the Constitution,” the Boston Globe reported.
Rudy Giuliani
Rudy Giuliani served as mayor of New York City from 1994 through 2001, known by the end of his term for his leadership through the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. Several colleges awarded him honorary degrees, then revoked them over his role in the attack on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, while serving as then-President Donald Trump’s personal attorney. Although Middlebury College in Vermont, Drexel University in Pennsylvania and the University of Rhode Island rescinded Giuliani’s honorary degrees, Syracuse University and St. John Fisher University in New York did not — despite protests from students and alumni. Giuliani was among those indicted in multiple states on numerous counts of attempting to overturn election results that led to Trump’s defeat in the 2020 presidential election. He lost his law license in New York and was permanently disbarred in Washington, D.C.
Kanye West
Since his ascension in the music industry during the late 1990s and early 2000s, including 24 Grammy Awards and 76 nominations, hip-hop artist Kanye West — who officially changed his name to “Ye” — has become a controversial public figure. In December 2022, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago revoked the honorary degree it had bestowed on West in 2015. The school’s public statement said it “condemns and repudiates (West’s) anti-Black, antisemitic, racist, and dangerous statements, particularly those directed at Black and Jewish communities,” adding that his actions “do not align with SAIC’s mission and values.” West faces numerous ongoing lawsuits over allegations of sexual harassment, racial and antisemitic discrimination, breach of contract, wrongful termination, copyright infringement and sampling disputes.
Jerome Lambert
Jerome Lambert was one of the best college basketball players in the U.S. during the 1993-1994 season, averaging 18.5 points and nearly 15 rebounds per game, the most in Division I. But before arriving at Baylor University in Texas, he reportedly committed an NCAA violation. While a student at Westark Community College in Arkansas, he submitted a plagiarized term paper with the help of coaches from both Westark and Baylor, which was recruiting him at the time. Lambert, who transferred to Oklahoma State University after one season at Baylor, admitted to submitting the plagiarized paper at Westark, now part of the University of Arkansas–Fort Smith. Westark ultimately stripped Lambert of his associate degree and Baylor became the focus of a federal probe due to other fraud and conspiracy violations tied to recruiting and academic dishonesty. Lambert was murdered in 2007.
Casey Martin
While not an otherwise well-known figure, Casey Martin gained notoriety solely due to the revocation of his degree from the University of Colorado–Boulder. In a saga that played out over the course of nearly a decade, the Colorado State Court of Appeals in January 2022 ruled in favor of the university’s regents and upheld the decision to revoke Martin’s master’s degree due to plagiarism. Martin was a student in the school’s Asian Languages and Civilizations graduate program and spent a year studying at Sophia University in Japan, where he befriended fellow student Justin Aukema. In March 2014, Aukema read Martin’s thesis and discovered his friend had plagiarized his thesis, Colorado Politics reported. Despite legal challenges and accusations of bias against the university system by Martin, the decision to strip him of his degree was upheld.
John Walsh
In October 2014, the U.S. Army War College in Pennsylvania revoked the master’s degree of former U.S. Sen. John Walsh of Montana, citing plagiarism as the reason. Walsh, an Iraq War veteran and former commander of the Montana National Guard, was appointed to the senate by then-Gov. Steve Bullock. While Walsh was running for office in the 2014 election, the plagiarism accusations surfaced and forced him to end his campaign, Reuters reported. In a statement, Walsh acknowledged and apologized for his actions. “Though I disagree with the findings made by the War College, I accept its decision,” Walsh said. “I apologize to all Montanans for the plagiarism in my 2007 paper and I am prepared to live with the consequences.”
Lance Armstrong
Cyclist Lance Armstrong became one of the most recognizable sports figures during the late 1990s and early 2000s, winning a record seven Tour de France titles and building the Livestrong cancer research foundation and brand that was part of the Lance Armstrong Foundation. But a U.S. Anti-Doping Agency report revealed that Armstrong was using illegal performance-enhancing substances during his run of success, a time in which he garnered headlines for his athletic dominance and his battle with testicular cancer. As a result, Tufts University in Massachusetts revoked an honorary degree it gave him when he spoke at the school’s commencement in 2006, saying his actions were “inconsistent” with the university’s values. Armstrong was stripped of his Tour de France titles, and Livestrong — popularized by its distinctive yellow wristbands — and Nike distanced themselves from him following the report.
Oscar Pistorius
Known as the “Bladerunner” for becoming the first double leg amputee to compete in the Olympics and Paralympics, South African runner Oscar Pistorius killed his girlfriend, Reeva Steenkamp, six months after he competed in the 2012 London Games. He was convicted in 2014 of culpable homicide. In 2015, the University of Strathclyde in the United Kingdom revoked an honorary degree it awarded him in 2012. Pistorius, who won six Paralympic gold medals, claimed he shot Steenkamp after mistaking her for a burglar. South Africa’s Supreme Court of Appeal overturned the culpable homicide conviction in 2015, instead finding him guilty of murder. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison, minus time served. He was released on parole in January 2024 after serving nine years.
Steve Wynn
American businessman Steve Wynn was perhaps best known for creating some of the most famous casinos on the Las Vegas strip, such as The Mirage, Bellagio, Treasure Island and Wynn Las Vegas. But when allegations of sexual assault against him surfaced in early 2018, the University of Pennsylvania, Wynn’s alma mater, stripped him of the honorary degree it awarded him in 2006. Wynn previously served as a trustee for the school and established a scholarship fund in his name. The school also named a common area after him. His name was removed from both at the same time his honorary degree was revoked, the Daily Pennsylvanian reported. University officials cited the “nature, severity and extent” of the allegations and Wynn’s “patterns of abusive behavior” for their decision.
Bill O’Reilly
Long-time Fox News personality and host of “The O’Reilly Factor” Bill O’Reilly was accused of “multiple acts” of sexual misconduct and sexual harassment of women in the workplace, and in January 2017 reached a $32 million settlement with a network analyst over some of the allegations, along with several other smaller payments to other plaintiffs, the New York Times reported. Fox News fired him in April 2017, and in February 2018 his alma mater, Marist University in New York, revoked an honorary degree it gave him at the school’s 2001 commencement. The reported settlement payment and O’Reilly’s firing from Fox News gave credibility to the allegations, the school said in a statement, adding that “any form of sexual harassment or abuse is deeply contrary” to its values. He retains his history degree, which he earned in 1971.
Robert Mugabe
After helping lead Zimbabwe to independence from Great Britain in 1980, Robert Mugabe assumed the role of the African nation’s first prime minister that same year. In 1987 he became the country’s second president, a role he held until 2017. He was awarded an honorary degree from University of Edinburgh in Scotland in 1984, an honorary law degree from the University of Massachusetts–Amherst in 1986 for his “exemplary devotion to social justice” and a degree from Michigan State University in 1990. Years later, Mugabe was accused of numerous human rights violations and putting Zimbabwe in economic peril after his policies led to catastrophic inflation, food shortages and poverty. The University of Edinburgh rescinded his degree in 2007, followed by UMass — which called his actions “egregious” and “an assault on human rights.” Michigan State followed suit in 2008.
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond
Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond rose to prominence in the Canadian legal ranks during the 1990s and has served as an attorney, law professor and judge during her career. Time Magazine in 1994 named her one of the “100 Global Leaders of Tomorrow,” and in 1999 named her one of the “Top 20 Canadian Leaders for the 21st Century.” Throughout her career, Turpel-Lafond spoke of her Indigenous ancestry, but she faced public scrutiny in 2022 when a CBC News investigation revealed inaccuracies about her background, the community where she grew up and her academic achievements. She was awarded 11 honorary degrees from Canadian universities between 2003 and 2019, including McGill University and Carleton University, but following the investigation and subsequent backlash, all were either revoked by the school or voluntarily relinquished by Turpel-Lafond.
Constance Briscoe
Constance Briscoe started her law career in 1983 and became one of the first Black women to serve as a judge in the United Kingdom. In addition to practicing law, she published two books about her early life — “Ugly” in 2006 and “Beyond Ugly” in 2008. But in 2012, Briscoe was arrested and suspended from the judiciary, though police gave no details at the time about the nature of her arrest. She was jailed for 16 months and disbarred in May 2014 after being convicted of lying to police who were investigating a perversion of justice case in which cabinet minister Chris Huhne persuaded his then-wife to take his speeding points to avoid losing his license. In August 2014, Briscoe was removed as a member of the judiciary and the University of Wolverhampton in the United Kingdom revoked the honorary degree it had awarded her.
More College information
Interested in pursuing a college degree? Get our complete rankings of Best Colleges. Connect with U.S. News Education on Facebook and X/Twitter to get more advice on making the college decision.
High-Profile People Whose Degrees Were Revoked
Bill Cosby Donald Trump Charlie Rose Sean “Diddy” Combs Andrey Bezrukov Heather Bresch Harvey Weinstein Michael Flynn Rudy Giuliani Kanye West Jerome Lambert Casey Martin John Walsh Lance Armstrong Oscar Pistorius Steve Wynn Bill O’Reilly Robert Mugabe Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond Constance Briscoe
More from U.S. News
How Cheating in College Hurts Students
Can Your College Admissions Offer Be Revoked?
What Academic Probation Is and How to Avoid it
20 High-Profile People Whose Degrees Were Revoked originally appeared on usnews.com
Update 09/20/23: A prior version of this story had an incorrect photo for Sen. John Walsh.
Update 05/15/25: This article was published at an earlier date and has been updated with new information.
