Kanye West's Honorary Degree Yanked For 'Hate Speech' By Art Institute

CHICAGO — Once the pride of the former alternative Polaris High School art program in Oak Lawn, rapper and hip hop artist Kanye West, presently known as Ye, has had his honorary degree yanked by the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

In 2015, the renowned art school awarded an honorary degree to the Chicago-area native for his “transformative, genre-defying work.” Students at the Art Institute, who called their group “Against Hate,” started a MoveOn.org petition in the wake of West’s disturbing antisemitic, anti-Black social media posts complaining about Jewish “control” of media and finance.

One October tweet stated that when he woke up, he would go “death con 3 on Jewish people.” His Instagram and Twitter accounts – after new billionaire owner Elon Musk welcomed Ye back to the platform – have since been locked.

Most recently, West brought along white nationalist leader Nick Fuentes to a dinner hosted last month by former President Donald Trump at his Mar-a-Lago estate. West reportedly asked Trump to be his running mate in the 2024 presidential election, angering the ex-president. The next day, West sent out a tweet that Trump “was really impressed by Nick Fuentes.”

Students collected over 4,000 signatures demanding SAIC President Elissa Tenny revoke West’s honorary degree, regardless of his past contributions. Students argued that “it is harmful to allow Ye, as he is presently known, to continue to use the School of the Art Institute of Chicago to help legitimize hatred and violence.”

“This harm impacts Jews, whose lives are put at direct risk by the mainstreaming of anti-Semitic views,” the petition continued. “This harm impacts all oppressed peoples, who stand to suffer when intimidation and deadly violence against people on the basis of their identity are made justifiable.”

On Thursday, SAIC students proclaimed victory when Tenny sent out a letter that the school would be rescinding West’s honorary doctorate from 2015, calling his recent scandals “indefensible.”

“This was a difficult decision to make, and one that has been deliberated thoroughly,” Tenny said in her letter. “There is no precedent in SAIC’s more than 80 years of granting honorary degrees for rescinding one, and as an institution of higher education, we know we must uphold a higher standard in protecting freedom of expression.”

Raised by his mother, the late Donda West, a professor at Chicago State University, West grew up on the South Side, living in the South Shore neighborhood and such south suburbs as Blue Island and Tinley Park. A former teacher at Polaris High School once described West as a creative but easily distracted teenager.

Some are attributing West’s bizarre behavior, including his recent appearance in a live interview “Infowars” host Alex Jones during which he declared his love for Nazis and Hitler, to his supposed bipolar disease.