Have any universities or institutions publicly disputed or rescinded honorary degrees awarded to Trump and why?
This fact-check may be outdated. Consider refreshing it to get the most current information.
Executive summary
Several universities and colleges have publicly rescinded honorary degrees that had been awarded to Donald J. Trump: notably Lehigh University and Wagner College in January 2021 and Robert Gordon University in Scotland in 2015; others that once awarded him honors (for example Liberty University) have not rescinded them and faced pressure to do so [1] [2] [3] [4].
1. Which institutions have actually rescinded Trump’s honorary degrees?
Lehigh University’s Board of Trustees voted to rescind the honorary degree it granted Trump in 1988, with the decision made in early January 2021 and affirmed by its full board shortly thereafter [1] [5] [6]. Wagner College’s Board of Trustees met in special session and voted to rescind the honorary degree it gave Trump in 2004 in the same January 2021 wave of actions [2] [7]. Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen, Scotland, revoked the honor earlier, in 2015, citing comments by Trump during his campaign that the university said were “wholly incompatible” with its values [3]. Reporting compiled in Forbes and higher-education outlets lists these institutions as having taken the formal step to strip honorary degrees [4] [8].
2. What reasons did institutions publicly give for rescission?
Lehigh and Wagner’s rescissions came in the immediate aftermath of the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol, a context repeatedly cited in contemporary reporting as the proximate trigger for trustees to act after years of pressure from faculty, students and alumni [1] [9] [6]. Lehigh’s action followed sustained internal campaigns — including a 2018 faculty vote urging revocation — and the trustees framed the 2021 decision as a response after the violent riot that “assaulted the foundations of our democracy,” an argument reflected in coverage of the university president’s condemnation of the events [1] [5] [9]. Robert Gordon University’s 2015 revocation was explicitly tied to candidate Trump’s public statements about banning Muslims from entering the United States, which the university judged incompatible with its ethos [3].
3. Which institutions declined or resisted rescission, and why that matters
Liberty University remained a prominent outlier, publicly keeping the honorary degrees it had bestowed on Trump and thus becoming “the only university” among those that had granted him honors to not revoke them in the immediate January 2021 round of actions, according to reporting at the time [3]. Other institutions that had conferred honors have faced public pressure — and, in some cases, alumni campaigns or petitions urging rescission — but either did not have formal processes in place to remove honorary or earned degrees or chose not to act [10] [11]. Coverage of University of Pennsylvania alumni pushing to rescind Trump’s earned degree underscores a key legal and procedural distinction reported by university observers: revoking an earned degree is far rarer and procedurally different from rescinding an honorary degree [4] [11].
4. Process, precedent and limitations in the reporting
The sources show a pattern: trustees typically act in special sessions to rescind an honorary degree after public pressure or events that the institution judges incompatible with its values; faculty votes and petitions often precede trustee action but do not bind them [9] [6] [10]. Reporting cites prior examples — including other public figures whose honors were revoked after misconduct allegations — as institutional precedent that universities can and sometimes will strip honors when reputational or ethical grounds are claimed [8] [9]. The available reporting does not provide exhaustive lists of every university that debated or rejected rescission nor does it supply full trustee deliberation transcripts, so public accounts focus on the institutions that made formal announcements [4] [12].
5. What the record shows and what remains open
Public, documented rescissions of Trump’s honorary degrees have occurred and were driven in major instances by two distinct rationales in reporting: explicit prior statements judged incompatible with institutional values (Robert Gordon University in 2015) and the January 6, 2021 Capitol attack and its aftermath, which precipitated Lehigh and Wagner’s decisions after prolonged internal pressure [3] [1] [2] [9]. Several schools that once honored Trump faced calls to follow suit and some did not, underscoring that outcomes depend on institutional governance, timing and political context; reporting does not detail every institution’s internal legal calculus or every trustee’s rationale beyond public statements and board actions [4] [11].