"Um, people? Boo don't need a petition. #shondalandrules," Rhimes tweeted without directly mentioning the online campaign.
Williams, who plays Dr Jackson Avery on the show, received the Humanitarian Award at BET Awards last month and has said, "We're done watching and waiting while this invention called whiteness uses and abuses us, burying black people out of sight and out of mind while extracting our culture, our dollars, our entertainment like oil - black gold, ghettoizing and demeaning our creations then stealing them, gentrifying our genius and then trying us on like costumes before discarding our bodies like rinds of strange fruit."
"If this was a white person making the same speech about an African American, they would have been fired and globally chastised, as they should be, but there has been no consequences to Williams' actions," the petition read.
"There's been no companies making a stand against his racist remarks and no swift action condemning his negative attitude. Why was Burke's character fired from Grey's Anatomy after his inappropriate homophobic slur, but nothing for Jesse Williams? Why the one-way street? Why the support for a hater? Why the hypocrisy? #AllLivesMatter All humans bleed the same color. #EqualConsequences4RacistBehavior.