The Howard University Board of Trustees voted unanimously Friday to rescind the honorary degree it bestowed upon hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs in 2014.
The school’s decision follows a series of alarming accusations against the rapper, along with recently unearthed surveillance video of the 54-year-old physically assaulting his ex-girlfriend Cassie Ventura in a brutal 2016 incident at a Los Angeles hotel.
“Mr. Combs’ behavior as captured in a recently released video is so fundamentally incompatible with Howard University’s core values and beliefs that he is deemed no longer worthy to hold the institution’s highest honor,” the university said in a statement published in the school’s newspaper.
The board is also directing the Washington, D.C. school to immediately disband a scholarship program bearing Combs’ name and return a $1 million donation he gave his alma mater in October. Combs studied business at the historically Black university, but left in 1990 after his sophomore year.
Combs acknowledged assaulting Ventura in a mea culpa posted online last month, in which he described his actions as “inexcusable.”
Footage from the altercation appears to back up certain specific claims Ventura made in a blockbuster November lawsuit, in which the 37-year-old accused Combs of rape, sex trafficking and repeated physical abuse throughout their on-and-off relationship, which lasted from 2007 to 2018.
Though Combs and Ventura settled the suit just a day, other accusers soon came forward with similar accusations.
Multiple women, as well as male producer Rodney Jones, claimed they too had been victims of Combs’ sexual harassment, sexual assault and drugging.
On March 25, the Department of Homeland Security conducted raids on Combs’ properties in Florida and Los Angeles, which were confirmed to be part of a federal sex trafficking investigation.
