Prosecutors have charged the man responsible for making threats to the University of Missouri campus on the social media app Yik Yak Tuesday night.
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“I’m going to stand my ground tomorrow and shoot every black person I see”, another post said.
Although MU Police reported early Wednesday morning that they had apprehended a suspect who posted threats on Yik Yak and that the suspect was not near campus, the tension remains. Park, 19, lives in Rolla, Missouri which is 100 miles south of Columbia.
On other USA campuses, peaceful marches or walkouts have been held, or are planned, over what a few demonstrators say is soft handling of reports of racial abuse on campus, including Yale University, Ithaca College and Smith College.
R. Bowen Loftin, the outgoing chancellor of the university system’s flagship campus in Columbia, posted about that the suspect on twitter, saying that he was not on or near the campus when the threat was made.
Among the offences black students have complained about are that a swastika drawn in faeces was found in a dormitory bathroom and that they are subjected to racial slurs by passerby in cars and on campus.
Signs such as the one below were placed around the University of Missouri campus by protesters, but they have since been replaced with welcome notes for the media calling the incident this week a “teachable moment”. “Please do not spread rumors”.
Missouri University of Science and Technology Chancellor Cheryl Schrader said in a statement: “Threats of violence of any kind are not tolerated”.
Missouri’s journalism school executive committee said in a statement that the video showed that its student journalists “acted professionally when faced with a hard scenario”, noted the Missourian.
Melissa Click, an assistant professor in the department of communication, resigned her “courtesy appointment” with the prestigious School of Journalism.
Click claimed that she apologized to the reporter, Tim Tai, by phone, and that her apology was accepted.
A few students, faculty and alumni have said the protests and top leaders’ resignations are the culmination of years of racial tension. The university has promised changes.
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Following Wolfe’s resignation, the school on Tuesday named Chuck Henson, Associate Dean for Academic Affairs and Trial Practice at the University of Missouri School of Law, as its first-ever head of diversity, inclusion and equity.
