Its members encircled Wolfe’s auto at a homecoming parade in October, and they have been conducting a sit-in on a campus plaza since last Monday.
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Students took action, which led to the announcement Monday that the university system’s president and the campus chancellor would resign – as well as the promise of even more changes.
“It is my belief we stopped listening to each other”, he said.
“We need, please, please, use this resignation to heal, not to hate”.
I share their anger at demeaning, racist language and the yahoos who drove through campus Sunday in trucks with Confederate flags.
For months, black student groups have complained of racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white, 35,000-student campus. But Wolfe also took a swipe at the protesters by saying, “This is not, I repeat not, the way change should come about”. Later, someone used feces to draw a swastika, drawing condemnation from black student organizations, according to local media. Faculty had threatened a walkout, and the school’s football team-led by dozen of its black players-had said they would not participate in team activities until Wolfe was removed.
Not playing the game would likely have had adverse season implications for both teams, and Missouri would have had to pay BYU $1 million for forfeiting.
Janna Basler, University of Missouri’s director of Greek life, did her best to keep student journalist Tim Tai from covering the protests.
Frustration surged in August 2014, when a white police officer shot and killed unarmed black teen Michael Brown in Ferguson, a mostly black suburb of St. Louis, Missouri’s second largest city.
Wolfe’s resignation is effective immediately.
“The lack of leadership Mizzou has been dealing with for months has finally reached the point of being a national embarrassment”.
Jerome Hampton Jr., a sophomore business management major, said he was glad the students had taken a few action. His twin sister also attends the University of Missouri.
It’s not that racial harrassment is increasing at the University of Missouri, says the student body president.
University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe announces his resignation from office Monday, November 9, 2015, during a UM System Board of Curators meeting in University Hall at the University of Missouri in Columbia, Mo. “I love this school and I want the best for this school”, he said.
As other student groups and faculty groups joined in supporting the protests, Wolfe’s job appeared increasingly less secure.
Brendan Merz, a senior undergraduate heading to an economics class Monday, says the protests haven’t affected him.
Wolfe had repeatedly refused to step down, and as recently as Sunday had proclaimed his commitment to “ongoing dialogue” and the development of a “systemwide diversity and inclusion strategy” due in April.
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Shortly after Wolfe’s resignation, Jonathan Butler, the graduate student who had been on an eight-day hunger strike, tweeted that his strike was “officially over”.
