LETTER: Some History

The Daily Pennsylvanian, when reporting on the fact that the University had rescinded the Master's degree from a graduate student who had plagiarized the work in the thesis (DP 9/17/92), quoted Janice Madden as saying this was the first time a degree had been rescined by the University. Actually, she had said that it was the first one she knew of; but, in fact, there are some precedents. According to the Trustees' Minutes, a bachelor's degree in Economics, awarded to H. Sokolove in 1932, was withdrawn because of "charges owing." In 1766, Issac Hunt, who would have been granted a masters of arts degree, had it withdrawn because he wrote a "scurrilous" article. In 1918, Wilhelm II, His Imperial Majesty Friedrich, German Emperor and King of Prussia, had the honorary doctorate degree he had been granted in 1905 stricken from the roles. At the same time, the honorary doctorate degree granted in 1911 to Count Johann Heinrich von Bernstorff, the German ambassador to the United States, was also rescinded. These actions were for "high crimes and misdemeanors and offenses against civilization and the humanities." (I thank Gail Pietrzyk, Public Service archivist, and Curtis Ayers, bibliographic assistant, for examining the Trustees' Minutes at my request.) What they did decide, on March 24, 1992, by a vote of 21 to zero with one abstention, was that they themselves did not wish to take photographs. This would occur only in the event that members of the University, who had been told that they were in violation of the Guidelines of Open Expression, subsequently refused to show their University identification -- itself a futher violation -- despite a warning that photographs or videotapes would be taken unless identification were presented. ROBERT DAVIES Emeritus Professor Molecular Biology

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