International

US College withdraws honorary degree for Trump over Capitol Hill riots

Published

3 months ago

January 10, 2021

A college in the United States, Wagner College, has withdrawn an honorary degree bestowed on President Donald Trump following the breach of Capitol Building by his supporters on Wednesday.

The Wagner College, a private school in the New York borough of Staten Island, voted to rescind an honorary degree given to Trump after another institution, Lehigh University, revoked its own honour to the president on Friday.

The college announced the decision on its Twitter handle.

The Wagner College awarded the degree to Trump after he spoke at the school in 2004.

Although the college didn’t offer a specific reason for the decision to take back the degree, the events of the last week make the withdrawal of the honour fairly obvious.

Lehigh University, also a private school in Pennsylvania, awarded the degree to Trump in 1988, and had resisted earlier calls by the faculty to take back the degree.

The announcement from the Wagner College came after several social media companies including Twitter, Facebook, YouTube and Instagram banned or suspended the president’s accounts.

Following the Capitol Building riots, Twitter initially suspended President Trump’s account, but a few days later, upgraded the suspension to a permanent ban after he used other account credentials to access the service.

The college wrote:

“The Wagner College Board of Trustees met in a special session to review the honorary degree granted to Donald J. Trump in 2004. Today, the board voted to rescind that degree.”