PHILADELPHIA _ Colleges award honorary degrees to those held in high esteem, people they hope their students emulate.
For most colleges, Bill Cosby no longer fits that description _ and he hasn't for a while.
Even before he was convicted on Thursday, more than 25 universities had yanked his honorary degrees, as the list of women who accused him of sexual misconduct grew into the double digits.
Within hours of his conviction, three more universities _ Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh, Notre Dame in South Bend, Ind., and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore _ announced they also had revoked the entertainer's honorary degree, offering a measure of public shaming to a man who was once almost universally revered.
And Friday afternoon, Temple University announced it, too, had pulled an honorary degree the school awarded to Cosby in 1991. The university had been under pressure to act since allegations began to mount against Cosby, arguably Temple's most well-known alumnus and for years a public face of the university.
Several others, including West Chester University and Wesleyan, said they had begun the process to revoke.
Meanwhile, Yale, which has had a long-standing precedent of not revoking honorary degrees, said it would review that precedent in the wake of Cosby's conviction. The university has been under pressure to revoke Cosby's honorary degree.
"The conduct of which Mr. Cosby was convicted is profoundly disturbing and deeply contrary to the mission of Yale and our expectations for behavior," the university said in a statement.
Temple University had said on Thursday that it would consider rescinding Cosby's honorary degree, but had offered no time frame. In a statement Friday, the school said the board of trustees had accepted a recommendation to rescind.
Some students, faculty and prominent alumni said earlier Friday that the school should have acted sooner.
"What's the question now," asked Bart Blatstein, a 1976 Temple graduate, who has served on an advisory board at the school.
The university should have pulled the degree "the minute he was convicted."
"I'm disappointed that the university didn't distance itself from Cosby a long time ago," Blatstein said. "I'm concerned that because there's not an arm's length relationship between the leadership and Cosby, that we're still being embarrassed by it."
Blatstein was referring to Patrick O'Connor, a lawyer and now chairman of the board, who represented Cosby in 2005 after former Temple employee Andrea Constand lodged sexual assault allegations. Cosby served on the Temple board at the time with O'Connor, who was not chairman then.
The jury on Thursday convicted Cosby of drugging and assaulting Constand.
Temple announced Thursday that O'Connor would recuse himself from any discussion on whether to rescind Cosby's honorary degree, given his prior role.
"My sense is that it's long past time _ it's actually something of a scandal _ that Mr. Cosby's honorary degree wasn't rescinded before now," said Steve Newman, president of Temple's faculty union and an associate professor of English.
At West Chester on Thursday, soon after Cosby's conviction, the vice president of university affairs made a request to rescind Cosby's degree, said university spokeswoman Nancy Santos Gainer.
"The honorary degree committee has been notified to meet to review the request," she said.
West Chester president Christopher Fiorentino, she said, "is prepared to review the recommendation and take immediate action."
Regionally, the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel, Swarthmore, Muhlenberg, Franklin & Marshall, Lehigh, Haverford,
Wilkes, Drew and the University of Pittsburgh all rescinded Cosby's honorary degrees before his conviction. In addition, California State University, the University of Connecticut, Bryant, George Washington, Boston University, Oberlin, Amherst, the University of Missouri, Brown, Tufts, Goucher, Fordham, Marquette, Baylor, the University of San Francisco, Springfield College and Ohio University have done the same.
Spelman College in 2015 ended a professorship endowed by Cosby and his wife.
Temple has had a long history with Cosby, who graduated from the school in 1971 and joined its board of trustees in 1982. The entertainer has long been identified with Temple. He wore Temple sweatshirts and hung Temple flags on the set of The Cosby Show and for years had been a popular speaker at university commencements.
As the allegations unfolded in December 2014, the embattled comedian left the Temple trustees board. In spring 2015, the university announced that Cosby would not appear at commencement as he had done for years.
"Unfortunately Mr. Cosby has brought shame onto Temple University," Newman, the faculty leader, said.
And, he said, O'Connor's prior representation of Cosby against Constand, formerly operations director of the Temple women's basketball team, has made it worse.
"I think we owe Andrea Constand _ and the other women who came forward _ a great debt for having the courage, for refusing to be cowed and for pressing on with these claims," Newman said.
Of O'Connor, Newman said: "I would ask the board (of trustees) to ask itself whether this is the person they wish to have in what is really the most powerful position on campus, and is in some ways the public face of Temple University."
