Spelman College has discontinued a professorship endowed by Bill Cosby, a university spokeswoman said.
After suspending the professorship last year in the wake of mounting accusations of sexual assault against Mr. Cosby, the college terminated the program and returned the related funds to the Clara Elizabeth Jackson Carter Foundation, the spokeswoman, Audrey Arthur, said in a brief statement. The foundation was established by Mr. Cosby’s wife, Camille.
The Cosbys have had a long relationship with Spelman, a historically black women’s college in Atlanta. Two of Mr. Cosby’s daughters, Erika and Evin, attended the college, as did Keshia Knight Pulliam, who played Rudy Huxtable on “The Cosby Show.”
Bill and Camille Cosby donated $20 million to the college in 1988. At the time, the gift was the largest single contribution to a black college. The funds were used in part to build the Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Academic Center. Spelman officials did not immediately respond to email and phone inquiries about whether the name of the building would be changed.
Several other colleges have also cut ties with Mr. Cosby in the last year, including his alma maters, Temple University, and the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
Spelman acted about a week after The New York Times published excerpts from a 10-year-old deposition in which Mr. Cosby admitted to obtaining drugs to give to young women in order to sexually pursue them.
The deposition was taken in Philadelphia in fall 2005 and spring 2006 in a civil case filed by Andrea Constand, who worked at Temple as a basketball manager and had accused Mr. Cosby of drugging and molesting her.
Mr. Cosby has never been charged with a crime and has repeatedly denied the accusations of sexual assault, now leveled by dozens of women.
Source: The NY Times
