Not eight weeks have passed since a different Smithsonian museum put the interests of the entertainer and his fans over those of his alleged victims and women more broadly. The Castle defended “Conversations,” an exhibition of Bill and Camille Cosby’s art collection that ran at the National Museum of African Art from November 2014 through January 2016—over which time dozens of women came forward claiming that Cosby had drugged and sexually assaulted them. Even after Cosby was arraigned in December 2015, which I noted at the time, the museum refused to budge in its support for “Conversations,” a show the Cosbys paid to install and which glorified Cosby as a family man.

The decision by the National Museum of African Art to back Cosby can at least be explained—if not very convincingly. Johnnetta Cole, the museum’s director, is a longtime friend of the Cosbys. The Smithsonian is gunshy about making tough decisions about art after a censorship crisis consumed the Castle in 2010. But there’s no problematic Cosby show hanging at the National Museum of African American History and Culture. The museum isn’t open. What goes up is still an open question.

Including Cosby is several kinds of blind. This history is still unfolding—Cosby will face prosecution for at least one of his alleged crimes—so framing an incomplete story as finished is wrong. The new museum is under no obligation to showcase Cosby. After all, including Cosby guarantees that some other worthy visionary is excluded. While it is appropriate to recognize The Cosby Show and his other works as art, the Smithsonian museum is (again) spotlighting Cosby the entertainer, which is a separate consideration from his creations. (Amy Schumer addressed the need to separate the art from the artist in a skit about how the jury of public opinion is reluctant to even consider the accusations against Cosby.)

Before the new museum opens in September, the Smithsonian needs to resolve a question over how it handles Cosby, which is simultaneously a question over how it approaches its viewers. Presumably there is some limit to the Castle’s support of Cosby. If he were accused of sexually assaulting hundreds and hundreds of women, there’s no way the Smithsonian would give him space inside a museum celebrating black excellence. If Cosby were convicted of drugging and raping women, he would certainly get the boot.

Where does the Smithsonian draw the line? In fact, Cosby is accused of drugging and assaulting dozens of women—at least 46 women, of whom 35 have come forward with public accusations. He could be convicted of the alleged 2005 sexual assault of Andrea Constand: presumably that would be a bright line. Barring that, what if more details emerge about the “secret agreement” in which Cosby admitted to the alleged assault and avoided prosecution?

The National Museum of African American History and Culture intends to include materials celebrating Cosby with no mention of any the accusations that brought his career to an abrupt end. Not so much as an asterisk. This is how culture works to protect powerful alleged sexual predators.

One day, visitors will arrive at the National Museum of African American History and Culture who have never heard of Bill Cosby. Not today, of course, but many years in the future. They may learn all they know of the man from the Smithsonian exhibit materials about him. Meaning they might not get all the facts! At issue is more than the deep disregard for Cosby’s alleged victims and other women put into similar situations by their attackers. The Smithsonian shows a casual attitude toward the truth.

In a two-sentence statement, the Smithsonian made clear that it is standing behind Cosby, without saying as much. “Conversations” will remain on view through the start of 2016. That’s the end of the conversation from the museum’s perspective. But it should be the start of one. The National Museum of African Art had no business hanging Cosby’s art collection in the first place. But now, with serious questions about Cosby’s past finally coming to light, the Smithsonian must reconsider its own role in framing the one conversation that matters most right now.

Today’s arraignment comes around a month before the show closes. It’s become a lightning rod for the Smithsonian over the last year, but despite pressure from art critics and others, the institution has never addressed what it means to carry water for a collector who’s been accused of crimes of such magnitude.

The National Museum of African Art posted a sign clarifying its support for the Cosbys in July of this year, and the newly installed Secretary of the Smithsonian, David Skorton, lent his support to the exhibit upon his arrival. But no one has explained why a show of Cosby’s collection (alongside museum pieces), presented in a way that emphasizes the Cosby’s love of family, should have been mounted in the first place. (“Memory, Family, and the Domestic Sphere,” one of the umbrella categories in the show, seems cruelly ironic, given the near-universal prevalence of Quaaludes in the accounts of Cosby’s accusers.)

Cosby’s last friend standing may be Johnnetta Cole, the director of the National Museum of African Art. Cole was the Spelman College president who landed the $20 million gift from the Cosbys in 1988: at the time, the largest gift ever given to a black university. Spelman has since cut ties with Cosby, terminating a professorship endowed in his name—a more serious gesture than those of the many universities that have canceled Cosby’s honorary degrees. Writing for The Root in August, Cole defended the decision to keep the show up on the grounds that it’s the art, not the context, that matters.

But context counts, too, and in an exhibition paid for by the Cosbys (to the tune of $716,000), in which Cosby’s name appears on the walls dozens of times, there’s nowhere to hide. The Smithsonian should acknowledge its role in buttressing Cosby. And it shouldn’t wait until until January 24 to take down the show.