By Ariana Spinogatti and Beverly Wakiaga
Quinnipiac is rescinding its Fred Friendly First Amendment Award to former CBS anchor Charlie Rose.
President John Lahey released the following statement after a cabinet meeting Monday morning.
“Based on recent reports of inappropriate workplace behavior, clearly inconsistent with our institutional values, the university will no longer have Charlie Rose’s name associated with our university and our Fred Friendly First Amendment Award.”
This past November, The Washington Post published an article where eight women accused the anchor of sexual harassment while they worked with him.
Since then, Rose was fired from CBS and his program on PBS was canceled. On November 24, the University of Kansas and Arizona State University both rescinded the awards their journalism programs had honored Rose with.
Quinnipiac’s School of Communications has been honoring broadcast journalists with the Fred Friendly Award since 1994. According to Lee Kamlet, the former school of communications dean, the award is “intended to recognize outstanding achievement in broadcast.”
The dean of the school suggests candidates to Fred Friendly’s wife, Ruth Friendly. She then selects and approves the person in consultation with President Lahey.
“It was felt that he had the depth and breadth of the experience … that he had achieved excellence and was deserving of the award,” explained Kamlet of the decision to honor Rose with the award in 2016.
While Rose has faced repercussions and issued an apology for his actions. Students at Quinnipiac have mixed feelings on whether or not he should be stripped of his award in light of these allegations.
“I know the award was given to him because of his journalism accomplishments, but I think that Quinnipiac’s honoring of this man will represent the school poorly and doesn’t accurately depict the school’s views on sexual harassment,” Molly Pelosi, a senior public relations major, said.
Gea Mitas, a senior health science major, shares a different sentiment.
“It was already given so why take it away?” asked Mitas. “When he was given this award, we knew what he had accomplished as a journalist and how successful he was in the industry. Those events in his career have not changed and that was the reason for getting the award in the first place.”
These are sentiments echoed by Ashley Kulik, a senior graphic design major.
“When the award was given it was meant for his work and not what he had on his personal time,”Kulik said. “Even though the allegations made against him are inappropriate, taking this back will not drastically change anything to make the situation better.”
This fall, a slew of notable men have been accused and admitted to sexual harassment claims in the workplace. Today show anchor Matt Lauer was fired from NBC due to similar allegations. Kamlet, a former ABC and NBC producer, defined this moment in time as a ‘Watershed’ moment.
“Women in all walks of life, not just journalism but entertainment and politics,” explained Kamlet, “women are finally saying enough and they are not going to put up with it anymore.”