Missouri students rejoice after forcing president to resign over racist incidents on campus

We shall overcome, indeed.

The latest racial protest in Missouri got results Monday with the resignation of University of Missouri president, who had been accused of not acting on racially abusive incidents on campus.

"Concerned Student 1950” — a student group named for the year the university accepted its first African-American student — had argued that complaints of racially abusive incidents had fallen on deaf ears from University President Tim Wolfe. Their examples included:

“The Missouri Student Association president was called the ‘n-word’ in public out on campus,” says Ryan Famuliner, news director at public radio station KBIA in Columbia. “The Legion of Black Collegians has a separate homecoming ceremony and they were rehearsing the night before the homecoming game, and a young inebriated white student came up and yelled racial slurs at the students. … What really irritated the students was the lack of a quick response from Wolfe.”

Jonathan Butler, a graduate student, initiated a hunger strike he said wouldn't end until either he died or Wolfe stepped down. Butler and others affiliated with the Concerned Student 1950 group stopped Wolfe’s car during the homecoming parade, demanding answers. This weekend, members of the Missouri football team joined in the protest by tweeting statements that they would not engage in football-related activities until the president resigns. The coach said that he was standing by his team.

The pressure from the students worked; on Monday, Wolfe announced he would resign from his position.

“I stand before you today and I take full responsibility for this frustration and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred,” Wolfe said in resigning.

In addition to mounting pressure from students, Wolfe’s resignation was also driven by outrage by the board of trustees.

“People have been asking me why Tim Wolfe has been pressured to resign,” says Famuliner. “It’s not like he broke some law and it’s so clear. It requires a bit of nuance to understand the situation. It’s a frustration with the delay. In fact, the chancellor at the University of Missouri, R. Bowen Loftin, saw a lot of similar criticism early on. After that incident with the Legion of Black Collegians homecoming court, Chancellor Loftin came out pretty strong and issued a video statement saying ‘this will not stand; we can’t have this kind of thing happening on campus.’

"He instituted mandatory diversity training for incoming students and faculty and staff.”

Chancellor Loftin’s move to address student concerns about racial hostility was welcomed by those within the University of Missouri system. When it came to Wolfe, however, no similar gestures were made — something that appears to have led to his downfall.

“This has brought [racial issues] to the forefront more than it has been in a really long time,”  says Famuliner. “It’s not a new issue — it goes back decades — and it’s not the first time we’ve had really terrible incidents happening on campus. A few years ago, we had some national interest in a story when we had two white students throw cotton balls in front of the black culture center on campus. These incidents happen, they spring up every now and then, and I think what these students are seeing is a lot of these are not new issues and we haven’t seen a real focused effort to change the climate here.”

A few years ago, Famuliner says an initiative called “One Mizzou” worked to address cultural and racial issues that students might encounter on campus. But no single program has been successful in changing the “hearts and minds” of students and teachers of all races within the University of Missouri system.

This story first aired as an interview on PRI's The Takeaway, a public radio program that invites you to be aprt of the American conversation.