Honorary degree of bishop with ties to residential school system rescinded

An honorary law degree granted to the late Catholic bishop John Fergus O’Grady by the University of British Columbia in 1986 has been rescinded. O’Grady had a controversial past due to his role in the residential school system, and his legacy has been re-evaluated since the revelation of potential unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. UBC’s Vancouver Senate held a vote on Wednesday, and the move to rescind the degree passed unanimously with one abstention. “We are here making a statement about what UBC stands for in relation to what it knows and understands, and where it’s complicit,” UBC Senator Sally Thorne noted before the vote took place. Prince George Post| CBC Note: Archived stories may contain dead links or be missing source links.