Brown and White Vol. 133 no. 15

              The Brown and White Vol. 133 No. 15
Tuesday, October 31, 2017 ‘All the Lehigh News First’
Trustees do not revoke Trump’s degree
By KLAUDIA JAZWINSKA
Managing Editor
Lehigh’s board of trustees has
decided to take “no action” in
response to the petition to rescind
President Donald Trump’s 1988
honorary degree from the univer-sity.
The petition — which was start-ed
by alumna Kelly McCoy, ’17, in
August — had collected more than
30,000 signatures within a few
days of its creation.
The board set a precedent in
2015 by rescinding comedian Bill
Cosby’s honorary degree after he
“admitted under oath to behavior
that is antithetical to the values
of Lehigh University and inconsis-tent
with the character and high
standards that honorary degree
recipients are expected to exem-plify.”
In its announcement about the
Trump decision, the board empha-sized
a commitment to the univer-sity’s
values and its Principles of
Our Equitable Community.
“These values provide meaning-ful
guidance when deliberating or
making decisions that impact the
Lehigh community,” the statement
read. “In considering a petition
regarding the honorary degree
given 29 years ago to President
Lehigh celebrates Asa Packer on Founder’s Day
By JULIA PARDEE
B&W Staff
Students, faculty and alumni
congregated at Packer Memorial
Church on Friday to celebrate
Lehigh’s founder, Asa Packer, and
the establishment of the univer-sity.
President John Simon high-lighted
the leadership and ded-ication
of the board of trustees.
He also recognized the commit-ment
of students and faculty to
the university. Select community
members were awarded walking
sticks — which Packer was known
to carry — to symbolize status
and leadership.
Recipients of the walking sticks
included the board of trustees’
honored chairman Kevin Clayton;
Lehigh’s first vice president of
equity and community, Donald
Outing; the dean of the College of
Education, Gary Sasso; the under-graduate
Student Senate presi-dent,
Matt Rothberg, ’18, and the
graduate Student Senate presi-dent,
Nick Ungson, ’15G, ’18G.
Both Rothberg and Ungson
spoke to attendees about preva-lent
national and campus issues.
Rothberg focused on the issue of
intolerance.
Donald Trump, the board of trust-ees
engaged in lengthy, full and
robust discussions. The board has
concluded that no action will be
taken.”
McCoy — who, full disclosure, is a
former design editor for The Brown
and White — expressed her disap-pointment
with the announcement
in a letter to the editor (see page
9), in which she called the board’s
decision “a hollow commitment to
ideology and an inconsistent appli-cation
of logic.”
“A sworn testimony by a vic-tim
of assault apparently does
not hold the same weight as the
sworn testimony of an assaulter
for Lehigh,” McCoy wrote. “The
university wasted little time in
2015 dumping Cosby, one of the
few African-Americans to hold an
honorary degree from Lehigh. Yet,
(Ivana Trump’s sworn deposition
that Trump had raped her) had
been public since 1993… However,
our society is inclined to dismiss
the experiences of women regard-ing
assault, and Lehigh made no
move to diverge from that status
quo.”
Sociology professor Ziad Munson
thinks the decision undermines
the Principles of our Equitable
Samantha Tomaszewski/B&W Staff
In this Nov. 10, 2016, file photo, two people hold up a sign asking the board of trustees to
revoke President Donald Trump’s honorary degree at a silent rally in front of STEPS. In
response to a petition with more than 30,000 signatures calling for the repeal of Trump’s
See TRUMP Page 4 honorary degree, the board of trustees decided today to take “no action.”
Sam Henry/B&W Staff
Lehigh faculty, staff and students attend the Founder’s Day ceremony on Friday in Packer Memorial Church. The faculty members and
students who were recognized at the ceremony received a walking stick as a part of one of Lehigh’s traditions.
“Bystander intervention —
whether it applies to seeing some-one
who is too drunk at a party
or is being harassed for their
minority status — is essential if
we want to foster a community
of global citizens and ensure the
prosperity of this institution for
the long term,” Rothberg said.
As an international student,
Rui Sun, ’20, said she was thrilled
to hear Rothberg stress the needs
of international students, which
she believes are often overlooked.
Sun said she was surprised by the
lack of attendance at this year’s
ceremony and wishes more peo-ple
could have heard Rothberg’s
message.
“I feel like there were fewer
people attending this year,” Sun
said. “Last year, there was more
advertisement for this, so that’s
probably why.”
Tonya Amankwatia, ’08G, has
attended Founder’s Day for the
past six years. Amankwatia is
also a parent of a Lehigh student
See FOUNDERS Page 4