Tim Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri, announced this morning that he has resigned from his post amid protests by student and faculty over the way recent instances of racism at the school have been handled.
Students have been complaining about the campus environment since late September, but it was only this weekend that the issue gained national attention, notes USA Today. On Saturday, over 30 Mizzou football players said they would refuse to attend team activities while Wolfe was still leading the university. Their head coach even supported their decision.
The players decided to join the protest against Wolfe after a graduate student, Jonathan Butler, began a hunger strike last week. Butler said he would continue to refuse to eat until Wolfe resigned.
Wolfe announced his decision to resign to the Board of Curators this morning in Columbia, Missouri and he took responsibility for what has happened.
“My motivation in making this decision comes from a love of Columbia where I grew up and the state of Missouri,” Wolfe said. “I thought and prayed over this decision. It is the right thing to do … The frustration and anger I see is real and I don’t doubt it for a second.”
As the Associated Press notes, black student groups on campus have said that they have dealt with racial slurs and other insults over the past few months at the main campus. In September, the student government president, who is black, said people in a pickup truck yelled racial slurs at him. A swastika was also drawn in feces on a bathroom in a dorm.
During the homecoming parade on Oct. 10, protesters even blocked Wolfe’s car. After the football players announced their protest, there was a campus sit-in on Sunday that kept growing.
“This is not the way change comes about,” Wolfe said today. “We stopped listening to each other.” He also hopes staff and students will “use my resignation to heal and start talking again to make the changes necessary.”