Howard College’s board of trustees voted on Friday to rescind rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs’s honorary diploma, because the music mogul faces a raft of lawsuits accusing him of sexual misconduct and different criminality.
“Mr. Combs’ conduct, as captured in a just lately launched video, is so essentially incompatible with Howard College’s core values and beliefs that he’s deemed now not worthy to carry the establishment’s highest honor,” the board mentioned in a press release to the scholar Hilltop newspaper.
The college described the choice as a call to “settle for the return by Mr. Sean Combs of the honorary diploma.”
Combs, who attended the traditionally black faculty in Washington, DC, within the Nineties, was awarded the diploma in 2014.
The assertion seems to be referencing the current launch of 2016 video displaying Combs punching and kicking his former long-time girlfriend Casandra Ventura, also called the singer Cassie.
The college mentioned it could additionally finish long-term relationships with Combs and return a $1m donation he made in 2016 to fund a scholarship, in addition to terminate an settlement for an additional $1m donation from the Sean Combs Basis.
The Unbiased has contacted the inspiration for remark.
After the video was obtained by information shops, Combs apologized, calling his conduct “inexcusable.”
“It’s so troublesome to replicate on the darkest occasions in your life, however typically you bought to do this,” he mentioned in an apology video.
“I used to be f***ed up – I hit all-time low – however I make no excuses. My conduct on that video is inexcusable.”
After the footage surfaced, Cassie mentioned her therapy by Combs “broke me right down to somebody I by no means thought I might grow to be.”
In a November lawsuit, Cassie accused Diddy of bodily abuse, sexual abuse, and rape, which the musician denied. The pair settled the swimsuit quickly after.
Since then, six ladies and one man have accused the music mogul of a bunch of crimes, together with sexual misconduct, drug use, and different types of abuse.
In March, houses belonging to Combs in Los Angeles and Miami had been raided in connection to a Homeland Safety investigation into intercourse trafficking.
He has denied all wrongdoing.
“I’ve sat silently and watched individuals attempt to assassinate my character, destroy my repute and my legacy,” he mentioned in a press release in December. “Sickening allegations have been made towards me by people searching for a fast payday. Let me be completely clear: I didn’t do any of the terrible issues being alleged.”
