Phylicia Rashad

[mamselle]

Sounds more like HR got their wires crossed.

That happens more often that one would like to believe.

M.

[lightning]

The 5/24 job description indicates that a minimum qualification is a PhD. As far as I know, she does not have one. And the job description looks like they are looking for an inward-facing operational admincritter, which would be a waste of what Phylicia Rashad could do for Howard.

Her tenure has not even started yet, and Howard has already screwed it all up.

[mamselle]

It's also possible they are seeking both positions, we don't know.

I'd keep an open mind; as I said above HR may have re-posted the ad in error, but it's also possible they know exactly what they're doing.

Tuesday-morning quarterbacking is an inaccurate sport, not a science.

M.

[simpleSimon]

Howard U. Dean's Support of Bill Cosby Reignites Criticism of University's Handling of Sex-Assault Cases
By Oyin Adedoyin

Howard University has come under fire after an incoming dean voiced her support for a Pennsylvania Supreme Court decision to overturn Bill Cosby's sexual-assault conviction.

Phylicia Rashad, who takes office this month as dean of the College of Fine Arts, posted a viral tweet on Wednesday: "FINALLY!!!! A terrible wrong is being righted — a miscarriage of justice is corrected!"

Cosby was convicted on three felony counts of aggravated indecent assault in 2018 and served nearly three years of his sentence before he was released on Wednesday. He had been publicly accused by nearly 60 women of sexual assault in the years leading up to his conviction.

By Thursday afternoon, Rashad's tweet had been deleted.

In a daylong discourse on Twitter on Wednesday, many expressed frustration with her reaction, and some asked that she be removed from the Howard faculty...

https://www.chronicle.com/article/howard-u-deans-support-of-bill-cosby-reignites-criticism-of-universitys-handling-of-sex-assault-cases

[simpleSimon]

Maybe this was a bad hire after all.  Someone at the Dean level should have the political awareness to know that "celebrating" Cosby's release via tweet would not be well received for reasons that shouldn't need to be explained.  So many victims of sexual abuse—particularly young women in college—struggle with coming forward to tell their stories and hold their abusers accountable.  Here we have a Dean who appears to be tone deaf to this dynamic.  No one who is that clueless should be in a Dean's office. 

Yes, she is entitled to her personal opinions and she is entitled to support her friend.  But she should be sophisticated enough to know that the person she worked with and loved like a brother perhaps has sides of himself that she has never seen.  I will never understand why women do this to each other.  Does anyone really believe that 60+ women are making up this same narrative of abuse out of thin air?  "He got her alone, frequently under the guise of mentoring her professionally... offered her a drink... spiked with drugs that rendered her unconscious... and he raped her."

I understood the impulse to appoint Ms. Rashad to this role, but she is obviously politically too clueless to be effective.  Her tweet in support of Cosby proves this... and her rush to delete the tweet affirms it.

[Parasaurolophus]

Not to mention the culture of grooming in many fine arts departments...

[mahagonny]

I guess the relationship with Bill Cosby matters after all.

[Ruralguy]

He wasn't exonerated.

[waterboy]

Her comment could have been much clearer. If the "miscarriage of justice" was to his guilt or innocence, that's a real problem. He admitted his guilt in the civil trial. If the comment referred to the prosecutorial misconduct, then - ok. Still would have been much smarter to just be silent.

[Ruralguy]

Bruce Castor just keeps proving he's a moron. The worlds next Rudy?

[mahagonny]

Her comment could have been much clearer. If the "miscarriage of justice" was to his guilt or innocence, that's a real problem. He admitted his guilt in the civil trial. If the comment referred to the prosecutorial misconduct, then - ok. Still would have been much smarter to just be silent.

i think it's good that she expressed herself. Not good for her, but now I know more about her.

If she hadn't said anything, the thinking in academia would still be 'what a wonderful choice! An accomplished woman of color. Anyone who isn't applauding it is either a troll or a racist..'

Like it was when the thread started.

[Parasaurolophus]

Her comment could have been much clearer. If the "miscarriage of justice" was to his guilt or innocence, that's a real problem. He admitted his guilt in the civil trial. If the comment referred to the prosecutorial misconduct, then - ok. Still would have been much smarter to just be silent.

It's somewhat complicated but here's my take (from the armchair: I have no legal credentials, just an interest): the prosecutor is wrong. Pennsylvania has official procedures to follow to grant immunity, he would have known that, and he didn't complete them. Furthermore, a public statement that charges are not being pursued at this time is not a promise that no charges will ever be pursued (if it were, then there have been a lot of miscarriages of justice on those grounds alone). In this case, the prosecutor had a vested interest in saying that he "gave" Cosby immunity, because he was up for re-election and had to explain his decision not to pursue charges. This explanation gave him a convenient out, even though it clearly has to be false and retconned. (I'm happy to grant that he's an incompetent moron, but I doubt he's that incompetent, since he'd have followed immunity procedures any number of times as part of his day job.) This much, I think, is perfectly simple, and doesn't require any legal background to grasp.

It's the question of whether Cosby was told his fifth amendment rights didn't apply to the civil trial that's more complicated, and what to do about it if that was the case.  On the one hand, the cops and prosecutors lie to suspects--and their lawyers!--all the time, including about the evidence against them. If that's okay--and the Supreme Court has decided that it is (which is fucked up IMO)--then I, personally, don't see why things should be any different in this case. You might think there's a duty to inform people of their various consitutional rights, since they're supposed to give you your Miranda warnings, but given that it's been ruled that you have to specifically inform the cops that you're exercising your right to remain silent (you can't just remain silent), and that asking for "a lawyer, dawg" is not a request for a lawyer, that seems somewhat tenuous to me.

So anyway: people make decisions that materially affect the outcomes of their criminal trials based on false information provided by the state all the time, so it's hard to see what's different here. I agree that that's wrong, and shouldn't happen. But I don't see why this rich fuck should be any different from the rest of the population.

However: let's grant that he was told he couldn't plead the fifth in the civil trial, and that forced him to admit guilt, which was then used against him in the criminal trial. In principle, I agree that there was a miscarriage of justice here--either it's true that he can't plead the fifth, in which case it seems that evidence should not be used against him in a subsequent criminal trial, or it's not, in which case he was willfully misled, to his detriment. Fine. In either of those cases, though, it looks to me like there already exists a procedure for dealing with that sort of thing: he needs to file a claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, like everybody else. Because if that's what happened, then his lawyers fucked up big time by not noticing it was happening and intervenining--both the civil lawyer (although I don't know whether you can claim inefficacy civilly) and the criminal lawyer, who should have had the civil testimony excluded. Since there's an established mechanism for dealing with this kind of problem and it hasn't been followed, I don't really see why a judge would release him (especially since the crimes he's accused of are serial and fairly recent). It seems to me he's getting special treatment that's not afforded to poorer and less famous defendants.

As far as Rashad goes, I just don't understand why people feel obliged to tweet. Especially once they start occupying positions of power.

[mahagonny]

con't

...or a misogynist. It's too bad in a way for the oligarchy of higher ed (tenure track, admin) if she doesn't get the job. Rashad would have been a pretty face to put on the feudalism that is higher ed labor. 'Lipstick on a pig.'

Well, now they've got Hannah-Jones. I predict her unendearing ways will be seen a little more vividly as we go along.

[ciao_yall]

She was in a tough spot. Yes, he was her longtime friend, and she may well have had blinders to his bad behavior.

Still, think of how many powerful white men have been getting away with that behavior for years - many she may have known about or experienced personally.

Then a Black man is accused and they throw the book at him. The "miscarriage of justice" she may be referring to was his punishment for behavior that is excused or ignored by those with less pigmentation in their skin.

Emmett Till, anyone?

[mahagonny]

She was in a tough spot. Yes, he was her longtime friend, and she may well have had blinders to his bad behavior.

Still, think of how many powerful white men have been getting away with that behavior for years - many she may have known about or experienced personally.

Then a Black man is accused and they throw the book at him. The "miscarriage of justice" she may be referring to was his punishment for behavior that is excused or ignored by those with less pigmentation in their skin.

Emmett Till, anyone?

Er....I take it it's OK to talk about Bill now. Funny how that happened.
Or it could be she stuck to herself on the set of the Cosby show because she had already heard about him and figured only a fool would neglect to get out of his way. But really, c'mon man, in the interest of true equality shouldn't every race get to have an iconic show biz ideal family man who turns out to be a scheming, cruel monster with a raft of enablers in tow? In the case of black to white it was only a difference of one letter ....'Cosby' or 'Bing Crosby.'
Well, three letters...wow.