Bill Cosby’s ties to Atlanta’s Spelman College are well-represented in brick, mortar and history.
Just yards away from the main gate of the historically black women’s college is the Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby, Ed.D. Academic Center, named for the entertainer’s wife. The Cosbys gave the school $20 million in the late 1980s for the building’s construction. It houses the Spelman College Museum of Fine Art, the college archives and offices.
There is an endowed professorship in the couple’s name. The college gave both Camille and Bill Cosby honorary degrees. And two of the Cosbys’ daughters attended Spelman.
With the growing sexual assault allegations against Bill Cosby, it would seem to some that the claims would shatter his image as a respected benefactor to the college. Yet in interviews with a sampling of Spelman students early Monday, what emerged was not a denunciation of the man.
Rather, some students took pains to separate the allegations from the entertainer’s Spelman legacy. They condemned sexual assault in general, but said they weren’t certain the accusers’ claims were true, despite similarities in the women’s stories. For the students interviewed, the case amounted to decades-old accusations against a man old enough to be their grandfather.
And, perhaps most telling, several students said they hadn’t been paying much attention to the case at all.
“On campus, we are all about preventing sexual violence,” said sophomore Sharena Adams. But “I haven’t heard people talk about (Cosby) on campus.”
“All it is now is allegations,” said her friend, sophomore Aaliyah Deggs.
In the wake of the rape and molestation accusations against Bill Cosby, several colleges with ties to Cosby have been called upon to repudiate him. High Point University in North Carolina removed him from its national board of advisers, and the Berklee School of Music stopped granting a scholarship in his name, according to The Associated Press. Calls are mounting for colleges to rescind honorary degrees they’ve awarded Cosby.
So far, Cosby’s alma mater, Temple University, where he is a trustee, is standing by him. Spelman is not officially distancing itself from a man who gave it the single largest donation awarded to a historically black college. Both Cosby and his wife still figure prominently on Spelman’s official website.
“Spelman College has no comment on the allegations,” said college spokeswoman Audrey Arthur.
However, Pearl Cleage, a former Spelman professor and a best-selling novelist and playwright, said it is time for Cosby and the school to speak.
“Bill and Camille Cosby have been generous in their support of Spelman College, my alma mater, where I once held the position of Cosby Chair in the Humanities,” Cleage wrote Tuesday in an email statement to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “I think this association with Spelman makes it even more critical that Mr. Cosby address these accusations in an honest and forthright manner so that the college can determine the appropriateness of the relationship moving forward.”
And yet, some Spelman students were not condemning him this week.
A few yards away from the academic center bearing Camille Cosby’s name, sophomore Kennedy Mack said erasing Cosby’s legacy at the school would be impossible.
“I can’t speak for the school, but I don’t think (Spelman) will change the name of the building,” Mack said. “Besides, that money is gone now.”
Sexual violence prevention has long been part of the campus conversation. In September, student groups hosted a sexual violence prevention and education series. The school has an active women’s studies center. On the center’s staff is the first recipient of the William and Camille Cosby Endowed Professor post. Even so, sexual assault is a difficult topic to tackle, particularly in the context of the Cosby case.
“The demonizing of victims of sexual assault is part of the reason more women don’t come forward when they are raped or molested,” Cleage wrote in her email. “This problem is compounded for the victim when the person she is accusing is wealthy and powerful.”
Even in that context, students talked about the Cosby case at some remove from the broader context of sexual violence. Some doubted the women who have come forward.
“I think everybody pretty much feels, ‘Hey, you know he didn’t do it,’” said Deggs. “It probably could have happened but it took decades for it to come out. If you’re telling the truth, why so late?”
Cosby is accused of a series of assaults against younger women whom he had agreed to mentor in the entertainment business. In many of the cases, he’s accused of gaining the women’s trust, drugging them, then assaulting them. The accusations span decades. Cosby has not been charged with any crimes related to the allegations.
Freshmen Nicole Jackson and Brelynn Hunt grew up by the time Cosby’s landmark sitcoms, “The Cosby Show” and “A Different World,” were in syndication. They grew up with the image of Cosby as a doting, funny father.
“People say, ‘Why isn’t Cosby defending himself,’” said Hunt.
“And I said, ‘Why would he,’” said Jackson. “Nobody would believe him, anyway.”
The two women stood with a group of friends not far from Bessie Strong Hall, which was filmed as a stand-in for a fictional dorm on “A Different World.” No one in Jackson and Hunt’s group appeared surprised by the college’s official silence on the comedian.
“That’s probably why they aren’t saying anything as a campus because he donated money, but it’s his wife’s name out there on the buildings, so they feel pulled in both directions,” said Jackson.
If there was one woman who engendered support among the students interviewed, it was Cosby’s wife. Students said Camille Cosby should not be part of the conversation about Cosby’s ties to Spelman. And while some students said they thought it was wrong that Cosby’s accusers have been publicly doubted, they said it’s the pop culture image of Cosby that they cannot get past.
“It’s not Mr. Huxtable,” said Hunt, referring to the Cosby show character. “It’s Cosby, but I can’t separate it. I love Bill. He is his character.”
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