The board unanimously agreed to revoke Mugabe’s honorary doctorate of laws degree Friday, marking the first time an honorary degree has been revoked in the school’s 153-year history. MSU has awarded 536 honorary degrees.

“They are going to try to notify him that he needs to return the degree,” ASMSU Academic Assembly Chairperson Chris Kulesza said. “But we don’t expect that he’ll try to return the degree.”

Mugabe received the degree in 1990 for his efforts to improve a newly independent Zimbabwe. But in 2000, students and faculty began to question the relevance of the degree to a man who has called himself “a Hitler of the time.”

The 84-year-old has been accused of rigging presidential elections and has committed countless human rights violations.

Monday, Mugabe was forced to cede some power by signing a deal that puts the president in close quarters with his biggest political opponents — opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, a former member of Tsvangirai’s party. With the deal, Mugabe will remain president, Tsvangirai will be prime minister and Mutambara will be deputy prime minister.

ASMSU has spent three years with Mugabe’s name looming over its head. In 2005, Academic Assembly passed a bill that demanded MSU to remove the degree. The feeling was strongly re-enforced when Student Assembly passed a similar bill in 2007. Kulesza said politics contributed to the board’s slow reaction.

“It really did come down to politics,” he said. “There were people that were saying that if we removed Mugabe’s degree, we should remove Dick Cheney’s degree.”

Friday’s Board of Trustees meeting proved that the university’s administrators felt the same way about Mugabe.

“Clearly everyone realizes the heinous kinds of behavior that this person has been involved in over the past few years,” Trustee Colleen McNamara said.

McNamara said there’s a distinct difference between voiding an honorary degree versus an earned one.

“Certainly, when people earn degrees, there is absolutely no way that we would ever take back a degree,” she said. “But honorary degrees — I was willing to stand back from that. Certainly this particular person was so awful historically.”

Trustee George Perles is confident that stripping Mugabe of the degree is a wise decision.

“I think we did the right thing,” he said.

“He doesn’t deserve a degree from this great university. I’m glad we went through and revoked his honorary doctorate.”

Although the elimination of Mugabe’s honorary degree is a huge victory for ASMSU, don’t expect members to be dancing in the streets.

“I can definitely say that there won’t be any sort of hors d’oeuvres party,” Kulesza said. “But we are in good spirits.”

Justin Harris and The Associated Press contributed to this report.