Through the academic looking glass

You will no doubt have noticed that the world of academia has pretty much gone down the rabbit hole and is currently producing wonder after wonder of weirdness. But something I find interesting is basically a tale of two famed institutions right here in California, and I can’t believe that I appear to be the first person to notice this particular disconnect.

In November, the California State Polytechnic University at Pomona (Cal Poly) revoked an honorary Doctor of Letters degree it had conferred on Bill Cosby back in 1992. The reason given was that the multiple allegations of sexual harassment brought against him are “contrary to the values” of the state university system.

The Cal State University system comprises 23 campuses up and down the state and has always been the working-class cousin to the University of California system. Cal State used to be where you’d go if you couldn’t afford UC, but that delta has blurred in recent times. The two Polytechnic schools (at Pomona and San Luís Obispo) are kind of the aggie-engineering arms of the system; my mom used to take us to the horse shows at Pomona, which were student-run.

Well, hard luck for Cosby that the university discovers it has values, and you can actually run afoul of them. Turns out that other academic institutions have snatched back honorary degrees from him, too.

But then, only the month before, famed UC Berkeley astronomy professor Geoffrey Marcy found his career blowing up in his face over not dissimilar charges of decades of sexually harassing students and colleagues. Marcy was outed by BuzzFeed, more than a year after complaints filed against him to the university’s Office of Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination were buried by officials. At first, he looked like he was going to get away with nothing more than a reprimand in his dossier, but eventually the storm rose to the point where he had to resign, still insisting that he hadn’t meant any harm by all those years of fondling and suggestive remarks.

Here’s the thing: before Marcy moved to Cal in 1999, he spent 15 years at San Francisco State—part of the system that yanked Cosby’s honorary degree—where he was also accused of inappropriate behavior.

So the Board of Trustees of the California State University system revokes Cosby’s imaginary doctorate for, basically, conduct unbecoming, but makes Marcy a Distinguished University Professor despite very similar behavior. Honestly—can they just show a little consistency?