Phylicia Rashad is stepping down as dean of Howard University’s Chadwick A. Boseman College of Fine Arts.
The Tony Award-winning actor is stepping down as dean on the finish of her 2023-24 tutorial time period. Dr. Wayne A. I. Frederick, the college’s outgoing president, introduced Rashad’s exit in an e-mail thanking her for her time with the esteemed HBCU and highlighting her contributions.
“In 2021, Dean Rashad returned to alma mater to lead the re-establishment of the College of Fine Arts as an independent college and to restore it to its rightful place as the center for arts and creativity at Howard University,” Frederick wrote. “The college was renamed in honor of world-renowned actor, playwright, director, cultural activist, and Howard alumnus, the late Chadwick A. Boseman.
“During Dean Rashad’s tenure, contributions to Fine Arts programming at Howard have increased significantly, anchored by a $5.4 million gift from Netflix to establish The Chadwick A. Boseman Memorial Scholarship.”
Rashad was a theater appearing main at Howard, graduating magna cum laude with a bachelor’s in positive arts in 1970. She launched her profession on Broadway earlier than enjoying Bill Cosby’s TV spouse, Clair Huxtable, on the favored Eighties sitcom “The Cosby Show.” She has starred in quite a few stage, movie and tv tasks within the years since.
The actor’s hiring in May 2021 marked the return of Howard’s College of Fine Arts as an unbiased faculty inside the college. In 1998, the division was merged with the College of Arts and Sciences for budgeting causes, upsetting many of the college’s performing- and visual-arts college students, alumni and school.
Read extra: Phylicia Rashad apologizes for celebrating Bill Cosby’s launch
But only a month after Rashad was welcomed as dean, her “Cosby Show” ties landed her in scorching water. She gave the impression to be in Cosby’s nook after information dropped that the comedian’s 2018 conviction for allegedly drugging and sexually assaulting former Temple University worker Andrea Constand had been overturned as a result of of a due-process technicality.
“FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted – a miscarriage of justice is corrected!,” tweeted Rashad.
A pair of hours later, as a backlash started to brew, she deleted her publish supporting her former TV husband and tried to make clear her remarks, tweeting, “I fully support survivors of sexual assault coming forward. My post was in no way intended to be insensitive to their truth. Personally, I know from friends and family that such abuse has lifelong residual effects. My heartfelt wish is for healing.”
By the top of that week, she despatched an e-mail to Howard University college students and oldsters, providing her “most sincere apology” for celebrating the overturning of Cosby’s conviction.
“My remarks were in no way directed towards survivors of sexual assault. I vehemently oppose sexual violence, find no excuse for such behavior, and I know that Howard University has a zero-tolerance policy toward interpersonal violence,” Rashad wrote.
She promised “to engage in active listening and participate in trainings to not only reinforce University protocol and conduct, but also to learn how I can become a stronger ally to sexual assault survivors and everyone who has suffered at the hands of an abuser.”
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It wasn’t the first time Rashad had defended Cosby. In a 2015 ABC News interview, she said, “This is not about the women. This is about something else. This is about the obliteration of legacy.”
In October 2020, Rashad shared a throwback photo of herself that was taken during Howard University’s Class of 1970 commencement ceremony. “I had just graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts and I knew that the world was before me,” she wrote in the caption. “Looking back at this moment I would say to myself, ‘Take a good look at this campus. It is more than brick and mortar. Yes, you are at the threshold of a new “beginning.” Take this living vibration of legacy forward with you.’”
Other notable Howard fine-arts alumni include Taraji P. Henson, Jessye Norman Alma Thomas and Roberta Flack.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
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