Dive Brief:
- University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe stepped down Monday amid outcry that he had done too little to address a hostile racial environment on campus.
- The announcement followed a faculty walkout and the Missouri Students Association's formal call for his resignation on Monday morning, according to USA Today.
- The walkout came after a week in which a graduate student initiated a hunger strike and the school's football team declared a boycott on its remaining games.
Dive Insight:
The University of Missouri System's Board of Curators were also reportedly set to meet Monday morning over the growing tensions. Wolfe had previously insisted that he would not resign, saying instead that a systemwide diversity and inclusion strategy would be announced in April — but that sentiment was far too little and far too late.
Among recent racial incidents on the campus were the smearing of a swastika in feces on a dorm wall, on-campus racial abuse of the black head of the Missouri Students Association on campus, and the yelling of the N-word at the Legion of Black Collegians as they rehearsed for a play.
These incidents aren't sequestered to Mizzou, of course. Yale is facing protests over an associate dorm master's insistence that students should be freedom to wear racially offensive Halloween costumes, and the past year has also seen incidents at Ole Miss and the University of Kentucky, to name a few. Campus presidents will face more scrutiny as these situations unfold.