Morehouse College faculty vote to award Biden honorary doctorate

ATLANTA — The Morehouse College faculty voted to confer an honorary doctorate on President Joe Biden during his upcoming commencement ceremony, where he is expected to deliver the commencement address.

But dozens of faculty members voted against the honor or abstained from voting, amid frustrations with some of the president’s policies and the school’s decision to host him as its commencement speaker.

The motion to award the honorary degree to Biden passed 50 votes to 38, with about a dozen faculty members choosing to abstain from voting, according to two faculty members present on the call.

The White House declined to comment and Morehouse did not respond to a request for comment.

Morehouse leadership announced plans for Biden to receive the honorary degree last month, a decision it said was first made in September, before the historically black college invited Biden to serve as its commencement speaker.

But procedurally, administration officials ignored a key step in the process, in which the faculty must vote to authorize this decision.

“It is imperative to clarify that the recent decision to call a vote to award Biden an honorary title is not in question because of current political affairs. The decision to call for a faculty vote is due to a misunderstanding in the process, which traditionally includes a faculty vote that typically takes place in September,” Morehouse said in a statement last week.

Still, the new timing of the vote – coming as college campuses across the country were seeing protests against the war in Gaza – transformed a typically mundane faculty vote into a vehicle for staff, once again, to express their his opposition to Biden’s visit.

In the week leading up to the vote, a small group of faculty distributed a letter declaring their opposition to the honorary degree, citing in part Biden’s handling of the war in Gaza.

“We recognize the honor that typically comes with having the most powerful elected person in the world speak at Morehouse. Right now, however, the United States government’s major policies are responsible for the suffering of millions of people across the planet,” the letter said.

Cedric Richmond, co-chair of the Biden-Harris reelection campaign and a Morehouse alumnus, said Biden “deserves” to be recognized by Morehouse, citing his record that ranged from nominating the first Black woman to the Supreme Court to overseeing the lowest black unemployment rate in history.

“The way I see it, he got an honorary degree,” Richmond said.

In response to some of the sustained opposition to Biden’s campus visit, Morehouse organized a meeting last week between a small group of students and faculty and Steve Benjamin, who heads the White House Office of Public Engagement.

Some attendees expressed concern about the controversy surrounding Biden’s policy toward Israel and his handling of the war in the Gaza Strip, which took center stage at Sunday’s ceremony, and implored Benjamin to ensure that the speech president’s graduation ceremony did not turn into a campaign speech.

A White House source familiar with Biden’s commencement speech plans said the president will “focus on students” during his remarks while also using the speech to “address their concerns.”