When Bill Cosby announced in 1988 that he was donating $20 million to Spelman College, the then-president of the historically black women's college was over the moon.
"I woke up the next morning and pinched myself to see if it had been a dream," Johnetta Cole told the New York Times.
Twenty-seven years later, with Cosby's name irrevocably linked to sexual assault, Spelman has become the latest institution to cut its ties with him.
The college announced Friday that it is ending the endowed professorship that sprang from Cosby's donation.
"The William and Camille Olivia Hanks Cosby Endowed Professorship at Spelman College has been discontinued and related funds have been returned to the Clara Elizabeth Jackson Carter Foundation," a Spelman representative told USA Today.
Spelman initially suspended the professorship in December. Since then, at least sixteen more women have publicly accused Cosby of sexually assaulting them. A 2005 deposition in which Cosby admits to giving drugs to women he wanted to have sex with has also surfaced.
Spelman is far from the first organization to distance itself from Cosby—these days, you can't go a week without some company or celebrity running in the other direction—but its decision must be a particularly stinging one for the comedian. Cosby's donation was the largest ever made to an historically black college; one of his daughters even graduated from Spelman.
But that was then. Now, as one disturbing allegation after another piles up, Cosby finds himself with one more former friend no longer willing to defend him.
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