COLUMBIA, Missouri — The University of Missouri’s president announced he would step down on Monday after protests by the school’s football team and other students over what they saw as his soft handling of reports of racial abuse on campus.
The high-profile resignation is the latest shock to the state of Missouri, and the United States at large, which has been roiled for the past year or so by racial tensions after police shot and killed an unarmed black teenager in the state.
Unrest at the university, widely known as “Mizzou,” started on Sept. 12 when Payton Head, president of the Missouri Students Association, said on his Facebook page that he was repeatedly racially abused on campus by someone riding in a pickup truck.
His post went viral, and the lack of any strong reaction from university President Tim Wolfe led to demonstrations at the school’s homecoming parade the following month, when protesters blocked Wolfe’s car, according to local news reports.
Later that month, a swastika drawn in human feces was found in a university dorm building, according to the Residence Halls Association.
Protests reached a critical point this weekend when the university’s black football players refused to practice or play until Wolfe stepped down, and some teachers and students threatened to walk out of class.
In a televised news conference held Monday to announce his resignation, an emotional Wolfe said, “I take full responsibility for this frustration and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred.”
“My decision to resign comes out of love, not hate,” he added, quoting passages from the Bible. “Please, please use this resignation to heal, not to hate.”
The football team, known as the Tigers, suspended practice Saturday and Sunday, and more than 30 black players had vowed not to return until Wolfe resigned or was fired.
In addition to the team’s action, student Jonathan Butler held a weeklong hunger strike.
“You saw what we did here,” Butler told several hundred students and faculty gathered around the university’s Carnahan Quad after Wolfe announced his resignation. “We chose to fight for our community. We chose to do what was right during this time.”
Protests on campus had been led by a group called ConcernedStudent1950, which says black students have endured racial slurs and believes white students benefit from favoritism in many aspects of campus life.
Many expressed their reaction to Wolfe’s resignation on social media, mostly calling it a victory. The hashtag #ConcernedStudent1950 was still one of the most trending topics on Twitter and Facebook. #Mizzou was the most trending hashtag in the U.S.
Many were praising and thanking Butler. His first tweet after the resignation announcement “The #MizzouHungerStrike is officially over!” was retweeted 1,700 times.
A majority of the approximately 35,000 students at the university in Columbia, about 125 miles west of St. Louis, is white.
Total enrollment at the university is 35,488, according to the school’s website, including undergraduate, graduate and professional students. Last year, in the school’s most recent figures available, about 7 percent of students were black.
Racial tensions in Missouri flared last year when a white police officer in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson killed an unarmed young black man and a grand jury brought no charges against the officer. The shooting kindled nationwide soul-searching about the treatment of blacks by law enforcement.