Racism Protests Lead to Head of University of Missouri’s Resignation

The president of the University of Missouri system Tim Wolfe resigned last Monday, November 12, in response to allegations by the student body about the indifference and lack of response to racial slurs on campus.

The students’ protests came to a head on November 7th, when the University football team threatened to boycott the game against BYU. This was the team’s way to backup Jonathan Butler, a graduate student who went on a hunger strike until Wolfe resigned.

Black student organizations at the University of Missouri manifested to feel ignored by the college administration about their protests of harassment and manifestations of an inhospitable climate to students of color. Allegedly, the university officers didn’t show interest in their pleas.

Wolfe manifested to take “full responsibility for the frustration” of the students. He also said their complaints were “clear” and “real”.

Hours later, the administrator of the Columbia, Mo. Campus, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin also announced his resignation.

Wolfe urged students “to heal and start talking again to make the changes necessary.”

Why did the President at the University of Missouri resign?

Before the team’s boycott and the hunger strike of one of the students, there was a series of situations that apparently went ignored, and that finally led to Tim Wolfe’s resignation:

• N-word bomb: while walking on the street on September 11, the president of the student government, Payton Head, received the n-word, screamed from a pickup truck.
• Silence at the parade: On October 10, black students blocked the homecoming parade, in protest against the “systematic racism” at the University of Missouri. When Tim Wolfe’s car got to the group of protesters, they gathered around it, but the president refused to talk to the group, and instead remained as a silent observer.
• Eloquent swastika: a swastika was found on October 24, in one of the dorm bathrooms. It had been drawn in feces.

Racism pleas started to burst throughout the country

The incidents and resignation of Tim Wolfe are not isolated. Racial tension has been growing on other campuses.

New York – A couple of days after Wolfe’s resignation, students at Ithaca and Binghamton colleges asked for the resignation of President Thomas Rochon, under allegations of “a low response” to racist incidents.

Connecticut – The same day of Wolfe’s resignation, hundreds of Yale students and supporters joined the “March of Resilience”, to protest against racial tension on college campuses. Student allegations included a fraternity rejecting a woman from a party because she was not white, and Halloween costumes that could be offensive to certain ethnicities and cultures.

California – On Thursday, November 12, Claremont McKenna College Dean of Students Mary Spellman stepped down, in response to students’ criticism about how the university handled a racially insensitive incident. The situation was about a photo of the junior class president, next to two white women wearing sombreros, ponchos, and fake mustaches.

Prof. Albert Laguna, Assistant Professor of Ethnicity, Race & Migration and American Studies at Yale said in an article: “colleges and universities are places where students and faculty can come together to question and think critically about the world we live in.”

Image credit: CHRISTIAN GOODEN at the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.