|
Last week, I went to the “Silent No More” art workshop given by Lili Bernard. The workshop was hosted by the Sexual Assault Response Unit (SARU) and the Johns Hopkins Caribbean Cultural Society. Lili Bernard is a visual artist, actress, the mother of a current Hopkins freshmen, as well as one of the many women who has accused Bill Cosby of sexual assault. Her alleged rapist, Bill Cosby, has an honorary degree from Johns Hopkins, which was awarded to him in 2004. On October 24 2015, members of the Sexual Assault Resource Unit met with Hopkins administration to ask that Hopkins rescind Cosby’s degree, which schools such as Brown, Boston University, Tufts andGoucher have done. Months later, the Board of Trustees still has yet to decide on whether or not to revoke Cosby’s honorary degree. It is very concerning that this decision is of such little importance to the Board of Trustees, especially considering JHU’s shady track record with sexual assault. Although there is no email for the Board of Trustees listed on their website, I encourage you to email President Ron Daniels if you feel that Hopkins should support the victims of sexual assault and rescind Cosby’s honorary degree. You can findPresident Daniels’ contact information here.
|
Earlier in the year, Hopkins Feminists (I think–I can’t quite remember) told us to email Paul Pineau, the Chief Legal Advisor to JHU. I got a pretty standard two-line response, but every message counts, right? And it was a lot of fun to figure out how to politely say “it is serious bullshit that a serial rapist gets an honor from this school.”
His email is paulpineau@jhu.edu, so feel free to drop him a line!