Recently at the University of Missouri, an unfortunate sequence of events led up to the eventual resignation of the school’s president, Tim Wolfe. This sequence of events included multiple incidents of students complaining of racism among students and faculty at the university.
The University of Missouri’s student government leader, Payton Head, sparked the racism discussion at the school with a Facebook post that he made in September. The Facebook post talked about how other students drove by him yelling racial slurs while he was walking down the street. After going viral, Mizzou officials made a statement saying that these types of incidents are unacceptable, according to CNN.
Apparently this was not good enough for Head and many other students at the university. They felt that racism was rampant on campus and that the school administration was doing nothing to help end it. In order to make their point, many Mizzou students decided to protest in various ways, including student marches and even hunger strikes.
Another incident sparking debate involved a swastika made of feces being spread on a black student’s dorm room door late in October. Shortly after this took place, the protesters met with Wolfe, but he did not agree to their demands, according to the Missourian.
On November 3, Student leader Jonathan Butler launched a hunger strike with the main goal of having the school president step down. Basically, Butler said he would not eat until the president was gone. Many students rallied around Butler’s efforts and joined the protest.
In addition to the hunger strike, the Mizzou football team protested in their own way. The black players on the team stated that they would neither play nor practice until Wolfe stepped down. Head coach Gary Pinkel, along with many of the white players on the team, supported the protest.
The issue of racial inequality on the Missouri campus is important, however, the students went about it the wrong way. Even if they felt the president of the university did not do enough to end racism on campus, it was uncalled for to force the man to step down. He had been the university president for three years and worked very hard in order to attain the prestigious position.
In addition, Wolfe never directly made any racist remarks or actions. The students who protested blamed the actions of a few racist students on a man who had no affiliation with those students. The president of the campus cannot control what goes on in his students’ minds, and he was not responsible for the racism. Yes, the racist students should have been reprimanded. Yes, the school president should have been more strict with his reaction to the racist events. But no, the students should not have forced him out of his job for this.
Just because a new president of the university will be appointed does not mean all racism on campus is going to end. It is good that the students are recognizing that racism is a prevalent issue, and it is also good that they are calling for a change. That being said, it was unnecessary for the students to essentially force the university president to step down.
