Thursday, 4:30 PM
Students ask university to rescind honorary degree
By James Vaznis, Globe Staff
Student leaders at the University of Massachusetts at Boston are calling on trustees to revoke an honorary degree given more than 20 years ago to Robert Mugabe, the president of Zimbabwe, who is increasingly scorned worldwide for what some consider a brutal and bloody regime.
The request, which the Undergraduate Student Senate passed unanimously on Wednesday, will be presented to trustees at their June meeting. Should trustees approve the request, it will be the first time the board has revoked an honorary degree.
"I think it casts a bad shadow on the university system to honor someone like that with a degree," said Shauna Murray, a member of the Non-Aligned Club, a student group that advocates against human rights abuses and has circulated a petition to rescind the degree. "I’m shocked the university would honor someone like that."
Calls to the Zimbabwe Embassy in Washington, DC were not returned Thursday.
The student pleas follow movements at Michigan State University and the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where officials are weighing how to take away honorary degrees bestowed upon Mugabe more than a decade ago, when he was revered as an outspoken opponent of Apartheid in South Africa and a fighter for racial harmony within his own country.
Mugabe’s critics, in and outside his political party, accuse him of ruling with fear and cronyism and for turning his back on his fight for racial harmony between blacks and whites. They chide him for seizing land from commercial white-farmers and giving it to allies, while using the secret police to beat or kill opponents. His tenure also has been marred by a slide from economic prosperity to a country ravaged by hunger and high unemployment.
