The Missouri Tigers football season hasn’t gone so well this year but they just scored a MAJOR victory off the field. Thanks to pressure from the players to bring the issue of race related incidents at the university to the mainstream media, president Tim Wolfe has decided to resign, after at first saying he would not step down.
@IamJoeSports
The president of the University of Missouri system stepped down Monday and the flagship Columbia campus’ chancellor announced he will “transition” into a different position at the end of year amid criticism of their handling of student complaints about race and discrimination.
President Tim Wolfe said his resignation was effective immediately. He made the announcement at the start of what had been expected to be a long closed-door meeting of the school’s governing board. He largely pre-empted that session in a halting statement that was simultaneously apologetic, clumsy and defiant.
The race complaints came to a head over the weekend, when at least 30 black football players announced they would not participate in team activities until Wolfe was gone.
For months, black student groups have complained of racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white flagship campus of the state’s four-college system. Frustrations flared during a homecoming parade Oct. 10 when protesters blocked Wolfe’s car, and he did not get out and talk to them. They were removed by police.
Black members of the football team joined the outcry on Saturday night. By Sunday, a campus sit-in had grown, graduate student groups planned walkouts and politicians began to weigh in.
There was a student who was already on a hunger strike over the incidents and refused to eat until the president stepped down. He did not receive much attention from the media but once football players got involved, things got serious, seeing as the program brings in millions of dollars to the school every year.
