Z-list celebrities and influencers purchasing honorary degrees

Earlier this year, followers of celebrity news pages were confused by the wave of random, unaccomplished celebrities receiving doctoral degrees. In some cases, the celebrities were not transparent in their announcements that they had earned honorary doctorates. Even when it was known that they received honorary doctorates, it was still unbelievable that reality TV stars and influencers were deserving of honorary doctorates. Some of these Z-list celebrities immediately started calling themselves doctors on all their social media profiles.

Well, the culprit for most of this is Harvest Christian University in Texas. It's unaccredited, and I don't even think they're licensed. They say they promote harvesting the power of honorary degrees, which are on par with academic degrees (they are not). They also claim to be royally accredited by Hawaiian royalty. Their website has a lot of grammatical and spelling errors. Their provost only has associate's degrees from ITT Tech and a community college. Their chancellor claims to be the king of Hawaii.

Rumor has it that celebrities are paying $10k for their honorary doctorates. HCU's website and organization has changed recently. The Hawaiian "king" is new. They're using him to claim that they're an indigenous organization and are, therefore, exempt from certain regulations. In reality, this school was founded by African Americans. The scariest part is that this "school" also awards academic degrees. I don't see any religious programs on their website, but they're claiming religious exemption.

https://www.hcunow.education/

 

More than 40 years ago, John Bear listed the reasons universities award honorary degrees. A large donation to the school was on his list. Nothing particularly new about it.

 

I call it truth in advertising:

https://www.hcunow.education/copy-of-chancellor

 

These aren't really donations like Dr. Dre giving USC a large check to construct a new music building. This is a fee that anyone can pay to get an honorary doctorate. There are other unaccredited colleges and seminaries that charge less for meaningless honorary degrees. HCU is more akin to Universal Life Church where you can purchase a Doctor of Divinity for your pet cat. Except, HCU's main business is to sell honorary doctorates. Education is not their main focus because it's not a real university. It's a small office in a business tower.

 

I would suggest that this is a distinction without a difference.

 

I suppose the difference is found in the intent. ULC seems to be to focused on allowing folks a pathway to legally marry their friends, without the necessity time and expense of seminary training, as most mainstream religions require. We know the ULC DD isn't worth much, but then they aren't selling it in a manner that would imply it is.

HCUs main focus however is... selling degrees? And doing so in a manner in which they claim accredited status and exemption from the rules.