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The board of trustees at the City University of New York has decided not to issue an honorary degree to playwright Tony Kushner (right).
According to an article by Kenneth Jones in Playbill:
A proposed honorary degree to be given to Tony Award-winning, Pulitzer Prize-honored playwright Tony Kushner by the City University of New York will not go through, CUNY’s board of trustees voted on May 2.
CUNY’s John Jay College planned to award the degree to the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Angels in America, but the trustees voted against the honor after a CUNY trustee expressed concern that Kushner had, in the past, criticized Israel.
This apparently came about after Trustee Jeffrey Wiesenfeld, the principal of Bernstein Investment Research and Management, looked at an anti-Zionist website that quoted Kushner and concluded that the honorary degree would be unsuitable.
Honorary degrees are essentially useless documents. It’s not like they entitle the holders of them to anything special. Indeed Kushner, who earned a real bachelor’s degree from Columbia, and also attended graduate school at NYU, has already received an Emmy, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, Pulitzer Prize for Drama, and numerous Tony Awards, might not even remember about that random SUNY piece of paper a year or two from now.
But then, if you say you were thinking of giving the award, and then you don’t, it’s pretty insulting, even if the award itself is worthless.
Kushner said “I want the state of Israel to continue to exist. I’ve always said that. I’ve never said anything else. My positions have been lied about and misrepresented in so many ways.” He did not have a chance to speak with Wiesenfeld.
CUNY, it’s probably worth pointing out, is the public university system of New York City. The university has no affiliation with the state of Israel.
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Sam Jack on May 06, 2011 10:57 PM:
It seems pretty outrageous to me.
Texas Aggie on May 07, 2011 1:31 PM:
Having seen some of the statements that this Wiesenfeld has made, I find it amusing that Kushner would be classified as an extremist and Wiesenfeld as somehow normal. You have to be way off in tin foil hat land to consider Wiesenfeld normal.
EBR on October 23, 2011 4:32 PM:
This practice bothers me also because there are students who study for their bachelors, masters, and postgraduate doctorate degrees the traditional way. Also I believe there are many ways to recognize accomplishments in addition to many other types of rewards.
I think, if institutions are going to do this, the least they can do is use "hdr" as a designation so that others can distinguish between an "honorary degree" and the traditional degree. I also think there should be disclosure including the field and name of the school on business cards, programs, bulletins, brochures, and other publications where an individual is listed. This way at least one can know the difference and ask questions. The programs might even list a reason why such an "honorary degree" was awarded in the first place.