Dive Brief:
- A University of Missouri grad student is on a hunger strike in protest of racial hostilities on campus and President Tim Wolfe, and the school's football players have threatened to boycott their final three games.
- ESPN reports that football coach Gary Pinkel’s Sunday tweet that the team is “united” followed a Saturday post by several players that said they would stop participating in the school’s football program until Wolfe resigned.
- The football team did not practice Sunday and was not expected to return to the sport until Jonathan Butler breaks his hunger strike, though Wolfe has refused to resign, saying instead that a systemwide diversity and inclusion strategy would be announced in April.
Dive Insight:
The Missouri Legion of Black Collegians has come together to protest Wolfe’s handling of several racially hostile events on campus. They are united around the hashtag #ConcernedStudent1950. Butler started his hunger strike after someone smeared a swastika on a dorm wall using feces. Students also protested after the black head of the Missouri Students Association said he was racially abused on campus and someone yelled the N-word at the Legion of Black Collegians, who were rehearsing for a play.
Yale is dealing with its own protests after an associate master of one of the campus dorms argued that students should have the free to wear racially offensive Halloween costumes. The #BlackLivesMatter movement has also touched campuses nationwide as students demand attention on racially hostile climates.