Bill Cosby told Howard University to support Phylicia Rashad’s “freedom of speech. Disgraced actor and comedian Bill Cosby has thrown his weight behind his on-screen wife Phylicia Rashad after she caught flak for celebrating his rape conviction being overturned.
In a statement issued by his spokesperson Andrew Wyatt, Cosby told Howard University where Rashad was recently named the Dean of the College of Fine Arts to support her “freedom of speech” amidst calls of her getting stripped of the post.
“Howard University you must support one’s Freedom of Speech (Ms. Rashad), which is taught or supposed to be taught every day at that renowned law school, which resides on your campus,” said Cosby, per The Hollywood Reporter.
Cosby was freed from prison and returned home on Wednesday, less than two hours after Pennsylvania’s highest court overturned his sexual assault conviction, saying he never should have faced charges after striking a non-prosecution deal with a previous district attorney more than 15 years ago.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its split decision after Cosby had served more than two years of a three- to 10-year sentence following his 2018 conviction, prompting outrage from sexual assault victims and their advocates.
The 83-year-old actor and comedian were released from a state prison in Pennsylvania just before 2:30 p.m. (18:30 GMT), a corrections department spokesperson said.
While Dean Rashad has acknowledged in her follow-up tweet that victims must be heard and believed, her initial tweet lacked sensitivity towards survivors of sexual assault,” the Howard assertion continued. “Personal positions of University leadership do not reflect Howard University’s policies. We will continue to advocate for survivors fully and support their right to be heard.
Howard will stand with survivors and challenge systems that would deny them justice. We have full confidence that our faculty and school will live up to this sacred commitment. These mainstream media are the Insurrectionists, who stormed the Capitol. Those same Media Insurrectionists are trying to demolish the Constitution of the United State of America on this Independence Day,” Cosby stated, additionally claiming that his conviction wasn’t overturned on a “technicality” as many have claimed.