Not much is going right for Rudy Giuliani.
His recent indignities include 13 felony charges related to his attempt to overturn the results of the 2020 election in Georgia, status as “co-conspirator 1” in one of former President Donald Trump’s federal indictments and the pending loss of his law license in Washington, D.C.
Meanwhile, an ex-employee is accusing Giuliani of sexual assault. The IRS says Giuliani owes massive back taxes. A motley cast of detractors, ranging from his former lawyers to President Joe Biden’s son, Hunter Biden, are suing the former New York City Mayor and Trump attorney over a variety of alleged misdeeds.
But at The Citadel, South Carolina’s public military college, Giuliani still ranks among the storied school’s most lauded awardees — the recipient of an honorary doctorate degree.
And unlike several other schools, including the University of Rhode Island, Drexel University and Middlebury College, which have stripped Giuliani of honorary degrees, The Citadel’s leadership has expressed no interest in revoking the honorary degree in public administration it bestowed upon Giuliani in 2007.
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Giuliani’s team praised The Citadel for letting Giuliani keep his honorary degree.
"I'm not surprised by The Citadel's appropriate decision to protect the honorary degree awarded to Mayor Rudy Giuliani — a man who locked up the Mafia, cleaned up New York City and comforted the nation following September 11th,” Ted Goodman, a Giuliani adviser and spokesman, told Raw Story.
“The Citadel, which stresses the importance of honor, duty and respect, is a national treasure and certainly a place any young student should consider when deciding on where to pursue an education,” Goodman added.
At least four other colleges — Georgetown University, Syracuse University, St. John Fisher University and Loyola University Maryland — have likewise allowed Giuliani to retain honorary degrees they awarded him years ago.
But none of them prize and project honor, ethics and lawfulness quite like The Citadel.
The 181-year-old military college’s Honor Code, for example, unequivocally states that cadets “will not lie, cheat or steal, nor tolerate those who do.”
Regarding “honor,” The Citadel’s statement of “core values” decrees: “The commitment to honor extends beyond the gates of The Citadel and is a life-long obligation to moral and ethical behavior. In addition, honor includes integrity; ‘doing the right thing when no one is watching.’ Finally, honorable behavior includes exercising the moral courage to ‘do the right thing when everyone is watching’.”
The schools that revoked Giuliani’s honorary degrees cited what they considered the former New York mayor’s lies and deceptions, as well as his legal and patriotic failures, in reaching their decisions.
Rhode Island University President Marc Parlange concluded that Giuliani had “encouraged domestic terrorist behavior."
Giuliani aided “an insurrection against democracy itself,” Middlebury President Laurie L. Patton declared.
Drexel admonished Giuliani for “undermining the public’s faith in our democratic institutions and in the integrity of our judicial system."
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For Michael Mullinax — a retired Army lieutenant colonel, former South Carolina state senator and 1967 graduate of The Citadel — The Citadel’s Board of Visitors, which alone has the power to grant and revoke honorary degrees, has no choice but to rescind the degree it gave Giuliani.
“The Citadel has always stood for three principles: DUTY, HONOR, AND COUNTRY. Rudy Giuliani does not represent any of those values, and if you as the leaders of The Citadel are not willing to take a stand against this corrupt politician, then you certainly have failed in your duties to The Citadel and its honorable alumni,” Mullinax wrote Aug. 14 in a letter addressed to Gen. Glenn Walters, The Citadel’s president, and Col. Dylan Goff, chairman of The Citadel’s Board of Visitors.
The letter further states of Giuliani: “There is no question of his action in attempting to overturn the valid election results of 2020, and his making of false and debunked allegations about rigged voting machines, polling place fraud, and other outlandish claims.”
Raw Story obtained the letter, which is stamped “RECEIVED” by Walters’ office on Aug. 22, through a South Carolina Freedom of Information Act request.
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Reached by phone this week, Mullinax told Raw Story that he has not received a response from any official at The Citadel, which he said is “disappointing."
“Giuliani has disregarded the oath of office that he once took, he disregarded the Constitution of the United States, he had disregarded the ideals and morals and what we were taught at The Citadel and in the military,” Mullinax said from his law office in South Carolina. “I’m disappointed in the failure to act by the administration of The Citadel, including its current president and the current Board of Visitors. I would hope that they would act sooner rather than later.”
Raw Story posed a series of questions to The Citadel about Giuliani’s honorary degree. Among them:
- Is The Citadel's Board of Visitors formally or informally considering any action related to the 2007 honorary degree that The Citadel bestowed upon former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani?
- If The Citadel's Board of Visitors is not formally or informally considering any action related to the 2007 honorary degree that The Citadel bestowed upon Giuliani: Why has it decided not to do so, in light of Giuliani facing felony charges in the state of Georgia and various other legal and ethical troubles, including the suspension of his law licenses?
- Does The Citadel consider Giuliani, as someone who has received an honorary degree from the school, to be a man of "eminence and distinction" — stated criteria for being awarded an honorary degree from The Citadel?
- Does The Citadel consider Giuliani to be a role model for The Cidadel's cadets?
- To what degree is The Citadel concerned, if at all, that Mr. Giuliani helped overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election?
Raw Story also asked why The Citadel had not responded to Mullinax’s letter.
The Citadel’s spokesman, Zachary Watson, declined to comment, saying the school has nothing to say “at this time” about Giuliani’s honorary degree or Mullinax’s concerns.
Internal emails previously obtained by Raw Story through the South Carolina Freedom of Information Act indicated that top officials at The Citadel sought in recent months to close ranks and deflect attention from Giuliani’s honorary degree.
“It’s quite disturbing to me,” Mullinax told Raw Story. “The Citadel’s principles — those principles are not in Rudy Giuliani’s gambit of life at this point. He has demonstrated that he is not qualified, nor should he be a role model for anyone now, much less the cadets at The Citadel.”
In contrast, Goodman, Giuliani’s spokesman, says his esteem for The Citadel is high.
“I'd be proud if my kid attended,” he said.
