Mizzou student government formally calls for president's removal amid racial tension
University of Missouri's student government formally called for the removal Monday of Tim Wolfe, the university system president, amid protests that he has not adequately addressed race-related incidents on campus, The Washington Post reports.
"The mental health, academic quality, and physical safety of our black students has been compromised time and time again," the group wrote in a letter to the University of Missouri System Board of Curators. "Now, the campus has grown so tumultuous that all of our students are unable to pursue the very reason they attend this institution."
The letter pointed to August 2014, when Michael Brown was fatally shot by a cop in Ferguson, Missouri, as the starting point of a worsening environment for students, suggesting the university met the shooting "with silence."
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
The student government's call for action followed a faculty-organized walkout called for Monday and Tuesday, a football boycott initiated by more than 30 players, and a graduate student's hunger strike. A student group started the protests in October, and Gov. Jay Nixon said Sunday the "concerns must be addressed."
Update 11:40 a.m.: Tim Wolfe has since resigned. "I take full responsibility for this frustration and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred," he said. "Use my resignation to heal and start talking again."
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Julie Kliegman is a freelance writer based in New York. Her work has appeared in BuzzFeed, Vox, Mental Floss, Paste, the Tampa Bay Times and PolitiFact. Her cats can do somersaults.
-
Wikipedia: Is ‘neutrality’ still possible?Feature Wikipedia struggles to stay neutral as conservatives accuse the site of being left-leaning
-
A House of Dynamite, After the Hunt, and It Was Just an AccidentFeature A nuclear missile bears down on a U.S. city, a sexual misconduct allegation rocks an elite university campus, and a victim of government terror pursues vengeance
-
Book reviews: ‘Gertrude Stein: An Afterlife’ and ‘Make Me Commissioner: I Know What’s Wrong With Baseball and How to Fix It’Feature Gertrude Stein’s untold story and Jane Leavy’s playbook on how to save baseball
-
Trump demands millions from his administrationSpeed Read The president has requested $230 million in compensation from the Justice Department for previous federal investigations
-
Trump nominee in limbo after racist texts leakSpeed Read Paul Ingrassia lost Republican support following the exposure of past racist text messages
-
Trump begins East Wing demolition for ballroomspeed read The president’s new construction will cost $250 million
-
Appeals court clears Trump’s Portland troop deploymentSpeed Read A divided federal appeals court ruled that President Trump can send the National Guard to Portland
-
Millions turn out for anti-Trump ‘No Kings’ ralliesSpeed Read An estimated 7 million people participated, 2 million more than at the first ‘No Kings’ protest in June
-
DOJ indicts John Bolton over classified filesSpeed Read Continuing the trend of going after his political enemies, Trump prosecutes his former national security adviser
-
Trump, Putin set summit as Zelenskyy lands in DCSpeed Read Trump and Putin have agreed to meet in Budapest soon to discuss ending the war in Ukraine
-
Courts deal setbacks to Trump’s Chicago operationsSpeed Read President Donald Trump cannot deploy the National Guard in Illinois
