Bethune-Cookman University students are upset with their school. On Monday students protested in response to the school’s announcement to not to hire NFL Hall of Famer Ed Reed as the new head football coach. Reed criticized conditions at the school in rant on social media. Some, students bear the slogan, “Ed Reed was right.”
FOX 35 News talked to a few students about the issues at the school. Students said Reed losing his contract isn’t the point of their protest, but rather that it was the spark or the last straw for them.
“What started off as my dream school turned into something that’s far less than what I thought,” one told the news station. The student didn’t want to be identified, for fear of losing her scholarship.
Students at Bethune-Cookman are complaining about rats in the dorms and a lack of hot water there. Several said they leave the windows open year-round in their rooms because there’s no AC.
“I was in the room probably three days before I started experiencing symptoms,” one asthmatic student said. She said the mold in her dorm agitated her asthma to the point, she wound up in the hospital. The student came back with a doctor’s note saying she couldn’t stay in a dorm with mold.
The students said they pay $30,000 a year in tuition at the private school.
“We’re constantly pouring money into this institution, and we feel like it’s not being poured back into us,” a Senior at Bethune-Cookman told FOX 35. “We’re not seeing change. They just keep giving us false promises.”
Reed said he wanted to improve conditions at the school. Not long after he spoke out about those conditions, the school announced it wouldn’t be hiring the football coach after all.
The school explained in a statement:
“After undergoing a detailed assessment and review of the state of our football program, we have determined that it is in the best interest of our university, athletics program, and football student-athletes to reopen the search and identify the next leader of Bethune-Cookman Wildcats Football.
While we appreciate the initial interest in our football program displayed by Mr. Reed during the course of recent weeks, we are also mindful of the qualities and attributes that must be exhibited by our institutional personnel during what have been uniquely challenging times for our campus as we recover from the impact of two hurricanes during this past fall semester.”
Maya Walker, a Senior at the HBCU, told FOX 35 she feels Reed was discarded after a single mistake.
“What he said was true,” said Walker. “But the school wants to control the narrative and save face.”
