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Syracuse University’s Student Association is collecting comments from undergraduate students, the University Senate and the Graduate Student Organization Senate on Chancellor Kent Syverud’s proposed honorary degree revocation process.

“It’s not (an issue) that necessarily really affects our lives directly … but I do think that there’s a lot of arguments that can be made here that people who are getting honorary degrees are meant to be emblematic of who our university is,” SA President David Bruen said.

The process was prompted by calls for the university to revoke Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani’s honorary law degree. Giuliani received his honorary doctorate from SU’s College of Law in 1989. 30 years later, after he actively supported and campaigned to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election, universities began to rescind honorary degrees they previously awarded to him.

SA will send its results to the Chancellor’s executive team and University Senate, Bruen said.

Students can submit their feedback on policies surrounding honorary degree revocation until Tuesday at midnight. Bruen will then submit comments to the chancellor before Syverud and the University Senate meet Wednesday to review student-submitted recommendations. The group will compile the submissions into a report to deliver to the Board of Trustees at its November meeting, Bruen said.

“The timeline will be that the board will, if all things go well, approve the report and the recommendations that it makes, and therefore create the process and standard to revoke honorary degrees,” Bruen said.

The university will likely begin determining whether to revoke Giuliani’s degree once the process is finalized. He said it isn’t clear whether the board will vote on the revocation of Giuliani’s degree at the November meeting or at a later date.

“I know the chancellor, at least, supports revocation for this case. However, I think it might be referred back to start over through the process again,” Bruen said. “If that’s the case, then it may very well be that the honorary degree for Rudy Giuliani or any other wouldn’t be officially revoked until sometime in the spring.”

GSO President Yousr Dhaouadi said members feel “pretty unanimous” about revoking Giuliani’s degree.

“We didn’t have any internal resolutions or votes for (supporting the revocation of Guiliani’s degree), but we did discuss it as a senate and there were no points that were made against that,” Dhaouadi said.

Bruen said that the GSO Senate plans to submit individual comments on the revocation process.

Revoking honorary degrees should be assessed on a case-by-case basis, Dhaouadi said. Also, given that the College of Law awarded the degree, she said she wants to hear opinions from the college’s dean, Craig Boise.

Colleges and universities have awarded Giuliani a total of eight honorary degrees in recognition of his work as mayor of New York City and role in the response to 9/11, as well as for his roles as United States Associate Attorney General and U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York.

By January 2022, Middlebury College, Drexel University and the University of Rhode Island had all revoked the honorary degrees they awarded Giuliani between 2003 and 2009. The Citadel, St. John Fisher College, Loyola University Maryland and Georgetown University all previously awarded Giuliani an honorary degree, but haven’t rescinded it.

SA Speaker of the Assembly Will Treloar said most comments from students so far have supported the revocation of Giuliani’s degree.

“I am personally in favor (of) the revocation of the degree and as we take in more student input we are seeing that the majority of this campus is as well,” Treloar said in a written statement to The Daily Orange. “This is a chance for the university to follow suit with similar processes undertaken by other schools in doing what is right.”

Published on October 24, 2022 at 12:44 am

Contact Stephanie: spwright@syr.edu