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Actions come after a wave of protests over racial tensions.
‘I take full responsibility for this frustration.’
Timothy M. Wolfe
U. of Missouri president
Hours after a wave of student and faculty protests over racial tensions led to the resignation of the president of the University of Missouri system Monday, the chancellor of the campus here also stepped aside.
The president, Timothy M. Wolfe, stepped down early Monday morning, and by late in the day, he was followed by the chancellor of the Columbia campus, R. Bowen Loftin.
Wolfe had grown increasingly isolated, with opposition to his leadership reaching a crescendo in the last few days. A graduate student, Jonathan Butler, has been holding a highly publicized hunger strike, saying he would not eat again until Wolfe was gone; the university’s student government Monday demanded his ouster; and much of the faculty canceled classes for two days in favor of a teach-in focused on race relations.
In announcing his plans to step aside, Loftin told the university’s governing body, the Board of Curators, that he would move into a new role in research. “I have decided today that I will transition from the role of chancellor” effective at the end of this year, he said. Loftin came to Missouri from Texas A&M in 2013.
It was the football team that delivered what might have been the fatal blow to the tenures of the two officials, when players announced on Saturday that they would refuse to play as long as Wolfe remained in office, and their head coach, Gary Pinkel, said he supported them. The prospect of a football strike drew national attention, and officials said that just forfeiting the team’s game next weekend against Brigham Young University would cost the university $1 million.
“That got the attention of the alumni and the board, along with a substantial penalty they would have been facing,” said U.S. Rep. Lacy Clay, a Democrat who represents part of the St. Louis area. “That would have been a disaster for their recruiting of black athletes and of black students to the university.”
Wolfe announced his resignation just before meeting with the Board of Curators on the campus here, which is the flagship of the four-campus system. Loftin made his announcement during a meeting of the governing board late in the day.
“It is my belief we stopped listening to each other,” Wolfe said. “We have to respect each other enough to stop yelling at each other and start listening, and quit intimidating each other.
“I take full responsibility for this frustration,” he added, “and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred.”
Thousands of students and faculty gathered Monday morning at the Speaker’s Circle, at the heart of the campus, to discuss racism and ramp up pressure on Wolfe and the Curators to act. They erupted in cheers at word of his resignation, and Butler said he would eat for the first time in a week.
The Board of Curators has the power to hire and fire the university president, and the Curators, in turn, are appointed by the governor. It was not clear how much pressure Wolfe was under, from either the curators or the governor, Jay Nixon, a Democrat, to leave.
Nixon released a statement saying, “Tim Wolfe’s resignation was a necessary step toward healing and reconciliation on the University of Missouri campus, and I appreciate his decision to do so.”
A series of racist incidents in the past few months spurred calls for change, and protesters said the president at first did not take their complaints seriously and that his later responses were not strong enough or swift enough.
An activist group, Concerned Student 1950 — a reference to the year the university enrolled its first black student — was formed to demand that the administration address what it said was pervasive racism. For the past week, the group has held a sit-in on a campus plaza, creating a roundthe-clock encampment there.
Clay, who is black, said he spoke with Wolfe on Saturday about black students’ concerns and the health of Butler, and even at that late date, the president was “kind of oblivious to the fact that he was at the center of this.”
Wolfe on Sunday said that “a systemwide diversity and inclusion strategy” that addressed student concerns would be unveiled in April. But that drew angry reactions from protesters as being too little, too late.
State Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, D-St. Louis, said Wolfe had become “a major distraction,” and drew a link between events here and the protests last year in Ferguson, a St. Louis suburb, over the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown. Nasheed took part in those protests, as did many University of Missouri students, including Butler.