Bill Cosby Stripped Of Another Honorary Degree In The Wake Of Rape Accusations

Bill Cosby has been stripped of yet another honorary degree in the wake of sexual allegations stemming from over 30 women. According to the Hollywood Reporter, a Pennsylvania university, Lehigh University, has stripped Cosby of an honor based on the misconduct that Cosby described in a 2005 deposition.

In the court documents, Cosby stated that he had extramarital affairs with several women, and some of those women accuse him of sexual assault. During the deposition, he also admitted to obtaining Quaaludes to give to women he wanted to sleep with, but he maintained his innocence.

Back in 2004, a year before Cosby’s deposition, Lehigh decided to give Cosby an honorary degree. The university decided to release a statement about their decision to revoke the honor and said that Cosby was “inconsistent with the character and high standards expected of honorees.”

Lehigh is just one of several other schools that have decided to strip away honors bestowed upon Cosby in the years prior to sexual abuse allegations. Fordham, Marquette, Baylor, and Pennsylvania Wilkes also turned their backs on the comedian.

This decision by Lehigh is made on the heels of the Dateline special that featured over 20 women who have accused Bill Cosby of rape. Dateline spoke to 29 women who have accused the comedian of inappropriate conduct. Of those women, Dateline put the spotlight on many, including high profiled names attached to the case such as Beverly Johnson and the first woman to come forward, Barbara Bowman.

Bowman, who alleged that she was raped from 1985-1987, said to Dateline, “I was introduced to Bill Cosby when I was 17 years old as an aspiring actress in Denver, CO. I was drugged and raped on more than one occasion.”

Bowman alleges that one of the incidents took place in Bill Cosby’s New York home.

“I have a couple of sips of wine. I remember leaning over the toilet bowl, throwing my guts up, and I remember wearing a man’s white t-shirt that was not mine.”

She said that Cosby then explained to her that she got drunk and he had to wash her clothes.

Despite Cosby’s explanation, Bowman said, “I knew I was raped.”

Model Beverly Johnson is one of few who doesn’t think she was raped but claims that Cosby did drug her during an audition at his home.

“I was drugged by Cosby in his home in New York on an audition,” she explained.

Johnson said that Cosby spiked her cappuccino, but she got away as soon as he put his hands around her waist.

“I personally as a human being could not look in the mirror and not come forward and tell my story about being drugged by Cosby.”

Many of the stories of these women being sexually assaulted by Bill Cosby are very similar, right down to the details. However, before the scandals accumulated, many of these women thought that they were the only one.

Since these allegations, Cosby has remained silent for the most part, but he did come forward at one point and denied drugging and sexually assaulting anyone. His wife, Camille Cosby, said that any sexual relationships that he had outside of their marriage were consensual, which stirred up controversy. At the time, one source claimed that Camille said that one has to allow space to let their spouse do the things he or she wants. She said that they both did this at times in their lives and that there’s no jealousy or friction between them. She has thought of Cosby as a serial cheater and not a serial rapist.

[Photo by Ethan Miller / Getty Images]