Revoke the honorary degree granted to CIA director John Brennan in 2012 by Fordham University

Thank you for your support! If you are directly affiliated with Fordham University, please indicate that affiliation below (e.g. "Professor of Biology" or "student, FCLC 2016"). The University currently seeks nominations for honorary degree recipients and commencement speakers. Fordham faculty & students have been emailed a nominations form; others can email me and I will email you the form. Finally, please check out Jamie Manson's fine article on our efforts in the National Catholic Reporter. http://ncronline.org/blogs/grace-margins/fordham-faculty-members-ask-revocation-honorary-degree-they-say-violated-jesuit#

embarrassing that this even needs to be said. thanks for starting this group. hope the administration actually listens this time and does the right thing.

I'm moved by the show of support for this petition, including and especially from Fordham students, past and present. (Moved, proud, encouraged . . . but not surprised.)

In Our Son's Name Film Viewing The Search for Peace and Justice in a Post-9/11 World Tuesday, February 24, 2015 | 5:30 p.m. Keating First Auditorium, Rose Hill campus In Our Son's Name is an intimate portrait of Phyllis and Orlando Rodríguez, whose son, Greg, died in the World Trade Center on September 11, 2001. The film tells the powerful story of how these bereaved parents choose reconciliation and nonviolence over vengeance and begin a transformative journey that both confirms and challenges their convictions. Phyllis and Orlando speak out against war in Iraq and Afghanistan, publicly oppose the invocation of the death penalty against avowed 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui, and, in a deeply moving gesture of compassion and solidarity, befriend his mother. The film mixes in-depth interviews with on-location footage and striking archival photographs and video to create a poignant personal story that invites us to re-consider conventional concepts of justice and healing. "You cannot help but be impacted by the humility and grace that Phyllis and Orlando show in the face of their son's murder, nor to ask yourself, "Would I be able to do the same?" —Shannon Moroney, restorative justice advocate and author, Through the Glass For more information, contact the Francis and Ann Curran Center for American Catholic Studies at 718-817-0662 or [email protected].

Finally this is being addressed. Fordham should be reflecting Jesuit values not honoring someone linked to torture. It really is that simple.

I'd like to note also the Fordham degree award to Benigno Aquino in 2011--shifted from graduation to a small ceremony in Keating because of bad publicity about his human rights record, which includes accusations of extrajudicial killings and more. For a recent summary of the issues from Human Rights Watch, see http://www.hrw.org/news/2014/04/26/philippines-obama-should-press-aquino-killings

101 signatures!!!!

I am very interested in the discussion surrounding potential candidates for honorary degree recipients. Seven years ago, when I was a senior at Fordham, a friend of mine and I had a meeting with Father McShane and in the course of the meeting, suggested that Fr. Dan Berrigan be awarded an honorary doctorate. Our reasoning was that Fordham honors many people who have intimate ties with this country's war-making. McShane (who I must say, was very respectful of us) noted that he was "certain that Dan would turn down the honor because [Fordham] has ROTC." I assured him that Berrigan had accepted similar honors from other institutions that had ROTC. The point remains, however, that Fordham would benefit from honoring someone who represents resistance to the system as usual. At the same time, Fordham administration makes it a high priority to honor people that have some celebrity status. Therefore, as examples of the type of people that would be fit both models, I would put forward Martin Sheen and Sister Helen Prejean. Both have some notoriety, and are committed to the tenets of Jesuit education. Of course, I believe there are many other worthy candidates for an honorary doctorate, but these are two examples that spring immediately to mind.

Please note: One limitation of this petition site is that we have no way of knowing who has clicked the box asking that their name not be shared publicly. And we are including the names and affiliations of signatories in a shared Google doc at bit.ly/1z3TQjI. If you would prefer that your name not be shared there, please write to ghendler at fordham dot edu and we will make sure your name does not appear there.

A bit of thanks to my colleagues who helped put all of this together. To expand on Jeanne Flavin's excellent idea, if you have ideas and / or people to propose for programming, do contact us, so that we can take the Fordham community into account in any planning. One quick way to begin--thinking about the honorary degree process generally. We know now who SHOULDN'T have received a degree--it would be helpful to get a strong community sense of who SHOULD receive one. .

Thanks to everyone for your continued support of this effort. In the weeks and months to come, our (very ad hoc) group of seven will provide updates. In the meantime, though, we invite you to undertake or continue conversations about how we -- as individuals and as members of various academic units and schools -- might promote reflection on how we/Fordham can better live up to the values in our mission statement, and otherwise deepen our commitment to the promotion of justice and the protection of human rights. (As an aside, do not under-estimate the power of small events or integrating conversations into existing efforts or programming.)