Howard University students want Phylicia Rashad fired over Cosby tweet
Outraged Howard University students and alumni are calling for actress Phylicia Rashad to be fired as dean of its College of Fine Arts in the wake of her enthusiastic support of Bill Cosby’s release from prison.
The hashtag #ByePhylicia — a play on “Bye Felicia” — started trending this week after the actress celebrated her former “Cosby Show” co-star’s release with a jubilant, “FINALLY!!!!”
“A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!” the actress tweeted along with a photo of Cosby, whose sex assault conviction was overturned Wednesday on a legal technicality.
Howard University has so far not announced any planned action against its incoming celebrity dean, herself a former student, merely noting that Rashad’s “tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault.”
But current and former students were among a flood of complaints posted online, with many calling on the private school in Washington, DC, to cut ties with her.
“Hold her ass accountable,” Whitney Meritus, class of 2024, wrote on Instagram.
“I’d take a non-famous dean who believes [sex assault] victims over a celebrity dean who does s–t like this,” the musician wrote.
“I don’t think she deserves to lead the Chadwick A. Boseman School of Fine Arts. Not anymore,” she said of the school that in May was renamed to honor the late “Black Panther” actor, who was a former student.
“I think it’s good that Phylicia Rashad spoke up and showed us she’s not qualified to be the Dean of the College of Fine Arts,” alumni Andrew Addison tweeted.
“It’s really on Howard to do the right thing and rectify the situation.”
Journalist Nylah Burton said she was raped during her time at the historically black college and “would not have felt safe under [Rashad’s] guidance.”
“When Rashad places herself so jubilantly on the side of a man who has been accused of sexual assault by 60 women and has admitted to drugging women, she places herself universes away from the needs and best interests of all her students,” Burton wrote in The Independent.
“Had I been assaulted while a student of Dean Rashad, I can’t say that I would have ever come forward. Because I would have feared her retribution and her judgment,” she wrote, saying she “most likely would have stayed silent.”
“Rashad should not be an educator,” she also insisted in a tweet.
Others were shocked at the actress’ turn giving the goodness of her TV character on “The Cosby Show.”
“I don’t wanna live in a world where you can’t even trust Clair Huxtable,” a tweeter called Mister Race Bannon wrote.
Others insisted that Rashad’s follow-up tweet — in which she insisted she was “in no way intended to be insensitive” to sexual assault survivors — was dismissed as ” a day late, and a dollar short.”
“You need to step down now!” someone named Debbie tweeted.
Another Twitter user insisted that the actress “betrayed every woman on the planet” and “keeps digging a hole.”
“#ByePhylicia You’re done,” the user wrote.
