By: Jenna Beresheim News Editor
After years of unaltered courses of action in the event of discrimination, the University of Missouri’s president and chancellor both resigned within a few hours of one another on Nov. 9, 2015.
“I take full responsibility for this frustration, and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred,” stated Tim Wolfe, the University’s president to CNN during his public resignation.
Racist events have taken place on the campus for years. In 2010, two white students scattered bags of cotton balls outside the campus Black Culture Center.
In 2014, Michael Brown was shot and killed by a police officer in Ferguson, sparking the Black Lives Matter movement as well as race-based issues discussions across campuses nationwide.
University of Missouri’s Student Government President, Payton Head, posted on Facebook during September this year about individuals driving around campus yelling slurs based on race and LGBTQ+ discrimination.
Still in September, the University’s Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said that recent racial biases and discriminative occurrences are “totally unacceptable,” according to CNN.
That same month, students began to protest based on the aforementioned issues, and much more.
By October, students held a second “Racism Lives Here” rally on campus and on a separate day, a purportedly drunken Caucasian student disrupted and yelled racial slurs at a Legion of Black Collegians group meeting.
Swastikas were drawn on campus using feces and ash, Tim Wolfe was confronted and demanded to change the campus’ culture around diversity inclusion, and demands were made but unanswered by the student body.
One key demand was the list of demands offered to Wolfe by the student body titled “Concerned Student 1950.” The date attached to the name was the official date African American students were initially accepted into the university.
Social media quickly flooded with students, staff, and supporters using the hashtag #concernedstudent1950 to start a dialogue around the subject matter.
As November rolled in, a student boycott began and a student began a hunger strike. Soon, the University’s football team refused to play an upcoming game that could cost the school over one million dollars, joining the protest.
“The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere’” tweeted the Mizzou football team on Nov. 7.
“We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence towards marginalized students’ experiences,” the tweet continued.
Sports Illustrated reported that the football team was not the only high-stakes opposition.
Multiple state legislators, such as Sen. Kurt Schafer, House Higher Education Committee Chairman Steve Cookson, and Assistant House Minority Leader Gail McCann Beatty all called for Wolfe to step down.
With outside forces from the state, national news coverage, and protesting students and staff, it was not long before Wolfe backed away from University of Missouri.
“Use my resignation to heal and start talking again,” Wolfe pleaded in his five-minute speech addressing his resignation.
However, it appears there has already been some racist backlash.
Yahoo! News reported online threats through YikYak on Nov 10. These threats were made by Hunter M. Park, who posted that he would “shoot every black person I see.”
“Some of you are alright. Don’t go to campus tomorrow,” read another threat that resembled the theme of posts made on 4chan before the shootings in Oregon last month.
According to the New York Times, police arrested a man on Nov 11 after making a “terrorist threat” while false rumors of Ku Klux Klan on campus were dispersed.
Ultimately, change is coming slowly to Mizzou, with both positions for President and Chancellor hoping to be filled by Jan. 1, 2016.
