# Law Degree **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 23, 2020, 6:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345 "2020-05-23T18:39:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![Pardel-Lux](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pardel-lux/32/20182_2.png) [@Pardel-Lux](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pardel-Lux)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 1:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/81 "2020-05-28T13:09:00Z")
> [@Northern\_Piper](#): > > […] > Unless there’s a moral turpitude clause in there (and I’ve never seen one in a university sign-up), don’t see how they could revoke because you do bad things later in life. There is in some places (see posts #46, #56 and #57, for instance), even in the USA. US-Universities seem to choose not to apply it, they fear losing money more than they fear losing reputation. ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/82 "2020-05-28T13:24:44Z")
Interestingly most of the schools that did not revoke Cosby’s honorary doctorates are historically black schools. Obama said there is no legal to way to revoke Cosby’s medal of freedom. I assume congress could change that if they wanted to pass a new law. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/83 "2020-05-28T14:28:10Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Obama said there is no legal to way to revoke Cosby’s medal of freedom. I assume congress could change that if they wanted to pass a new law. Does the proscription against ex post facto laws only apply to criminal law or any law? ---
**Author:** ![Falchion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a88e57/32.png) [@Falchion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Falchion)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2020, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/84 "2020-05-28T14:39:46Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > Interestingly most of the schools that did not revoke Cosby’s honorary doctorates are historically black schools. > > Obama said there is no legal to way to revoke Cosby’s medal of freedom. I assume congress could change that if they wanted to pass a new law. As I understand it, the medal of freedom is entirely an executive creation. There is no “old” law to change and I wonder whether Congress could really purport to regulate such a thing. Watching the video at the Wikipedia page on the medal, Obama says that there’s no “precedent” and no “mechanism,” but not that it would be unlawful. He’s just politely dodging the question. There was a b[ill introduced in Congress in 2018](https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/6810) urging the president to revoke the medal and making it a crime to display a revoked medal. This seems consistent with my thought that it is up to the president to do it. I assume, with respect to mechanism, that the president can simply declare a medal “revoked” much in the same way he simply conjures up its award in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/85 "2020-05-29T01:45:07Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Does the proscription against ex post facto laws only apply to criminal law or any law? Only to criminal law. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/86 "2020-05-29T02:57:08Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Only to criminal law. I 100% believe you. But why does it not include civil law? ---
**Author:** ![Northern\_Piper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/northern_piper/32/5304_2.png) [@Northern\_Piper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Northern_Piper)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/87 "2020-05-29T20:54:38Z")
Because the concern about retroactive criminal law is that historically, it has been used to put people in jail or even execute them. Changing the law of contracts or torte retroactively won’t put anyone’s life or liberty at risk b ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/88 "2020-05-29T21:20:15Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > But why does it not include civil law? Because of democracy. In an absolute democracy, the people would have the power to do anything as long as the majority approved of it. If a majority wanted to execute all of the people with red hair, then they would have the right to do it. We do not agree to this principle of absolute democracy. We believe that there are things that are wrong and should not be allowed even if a majority of people want them to happen. So we place certain rights beyond the ability to be overriden by a democratic vote; things like freedom of religion and speech and not enslaving people. But fundamentally we believe in democracy and want to keep the exceptions as narrow as possible. Most decisions of what’s right and wrong we leave to the democratic process. In this particular case, we drew the line between charging a person with a crime based on a law that was applied retroactively and making a civil judgment against a person based on a law that was applied retroactively. We decided the first was so wrong it should be prohibited entirely and the second was something we should leave subject to the will of the majority. ---
**Author:** ![amarinth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3be4f8/32.png) [@amarinth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/amarinth)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 10:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/89 "2020-05-29T22:13:36Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > There’s a unpleasant piece of history that the AMA doesn’t like to talk about. Back in the thirties and forties they led a big push to set standards for what credentials were necessary for a person to be able to call themselves a physician and be legally able to practice medicine. > > Doesn’t sound like a bad thing, right? But the movement wasn’t intended to raise the standards for American doctors. It was designed to create barriers to keep foreign doctors, many of who were fleeing Europe at this time, from being able to practice medicine in the United States and compete with American doctors. There’s a similar history for lawyers. Before, you became a lawyer by basically interning with lawyers for a while while you learned the trade. That slowly changed to introduce standardized education & credentials. Yay, higher standards. But it made it so that in order to become a lawyer you needed to spend 7 years of your prime working life spending money in order to go through college and law school to get the appropriate an education (and not earning money). That’s a luxury that some people (read “immigrants” and “black people”) were very much less likely to have (assuming they could even find a school that would admit them) and effectively denied access to the profession to the “wrong kind of people.” I remember on graduation day, people called each other “Doctor” as a silly joke. Never since. (Also, I think I can wear a purple doctoral hood should the opportunity ever arise again.) ---
**Author:** ![jbaker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/59ef9b/32.png) [@jbaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jbaker)\ **Post date:** [May 29, 2020, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/90 "2020-05-29T22:16:30Z")
I don’t think I get the full doctoral hood. That’s probably a practice that varies by school. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2020, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345/91 "2020-05-30T03:27:41Z")
> [@jbaker](#): > > But Cosby also has a doctorate in education from the University of Massachusetts, which as far as I know has not been revoked. I think that’s right, but he earned that. He has had a bunch o’ honorary degrees rescinded, though, including by my alma mater Oberlin College: [List of honorary degrees awarded to Bill Cosby - Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_honorary_degrees_awarded_to_Bill_Cosby) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/law-degree/854345.md?page=4)