Football players boost Missouri protests
COLUMBIA, Mo. — Students at the University of Missouri have been demonstrating for weeks for the ouster of the university president, protesting the school’s handling of racial tensions. But their movement received a boost over the weekend when dozens of black football players issued a blunt ultimatum: Resign or they won’t play.
Fueling the anger were a series of on-campus incidents: racial slurs hurled at black students and feces smeared into the shape of a swastika on a wall in a residence hall.
What many students viewed as a sluggish response from the administration gave rise to calls for the removal of the president, Tim Wolfe.
The Legion of Black Collegians, the black student government, posted a photograph to Twitter on Saturday night of more than 30 football players linked in arms with a graduate student who is staging a hunger strike.
“The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere,’ ” a message accompanying the photo said, quoting a line from the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr.
After a meeting with the football team Sunday at the school’s athletic training complex, Coach Gary Pinkel declared his support for the demonstrating players with a team photo on Twitter.
The strike reflected a growing willingness among black college students at predominantly white institutions to demand quick action and stronger responses from officials to reports of racial antagonism.
Their efforts dovetail with broader pushes against inequality and injustice like the Black Lives Matter movement, which arose in response to a string of fatal police shootings of unarmed black civilians, including the death of Michael Brown last year in Ferguson, Mo.
Officials in Missouri were grappling with how to respond to the boycott, which could cost the university more than $1 million if the team forfeits a game scheduled for Saturday.
Wolfe said in a statement Sunday that his administration was working to address the students’ concerns, including a list of demands from a campus activist group spearheading the demonstrations, and promised to share the next steps as soon as they were confirmed.
“My administration has been meeting around the clock and has been doing a tremendous amount of reflection on how to address these complex matters,” he said. “We want to find the best way to get everyone around the table and create the safe space for a meaningful conversation that promotes change.”
His response did not quell frustration among demonstrators, both black and white, who were camped out in tents on the Mel Carnahan Quadrangle at the center of the campus.
Storm Ervin, a senior and a member of Concerned Student 1950, the student group organizing the protests, said Wolfe’s refusal to resign showed that he was out of touch.
“We’ve had departments supporting us. We’ve had faculty supporting us,” she said. “People who he leads are standing in solidarity with us.”
Ervin pointed out the university chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, who brought food to the campsite and was talking with students there Sunday afternoon. Loftin was an early target of the demonstrations before criticism shifted to Wolfe.
“We’ve been to other schools within the U.M. System,” Ervin said, “and students there have been protesting, saying: ‘Tim Wolfe, your presidency is inadequate. You’ve been negligent. We don’t want you here anymore.’ But he’s not budging, and that’s really disappointing.”
A prolonged strike could have potentially costly consequences for the players, some of whom depend on athletic scholarships, and the university, which draws revenue from ticket sales and the sale of television distribution rights.
If Missouri forfeits Saturday’s game against Brigham Young University, it would be required to pay $1 million to BYU, according to a copy of the contract between the two schools.
Sixty of the 124 players on the Missouri football roster are black, although it is not clear whether all of them are participating in the strike, according to the Columbia Missourian.