Football players join racial protest
Columbia, Mo. — Student protests over racial incidents on the University of Missouri campus escalated over the weekend when at least 30 black football players announced they will not participate in team activities until the school’s president is removed.
President Tim Wolfe gave no indication he has any intention of stepping down but agreed in a statement Sunday that “change is needed” and said the university is working to draw up a plan by April to promote diversity and tolerance.
For months, black student groups have complained of racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white, 35,000-student campus. Tensions flared during the homecoming parade Oct. 10 when black protesters blocked Wolfe’s car and were removed by police.
On Saturday night, black members of the football team joined the outcry.
The athletes did not say explicitly whether they would boycott the team’s three remaining games this season. The Tigers’ next game is Saturday against BYU at Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the NFL’s Kansas City Chiefs, and canceling it could cost the school more than $1 million.
“The athletes of color on the University of Missouri football team truly believe ‘Injustice Anywhere is a threat to Justice Everywhere,’” the players said. “We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence toward marginalized students’ experience. WE ARE UNITED!!!!!”
Head football coach Gary Pinkel expressed solidarity with the black players on Twitter by posting a picture of the team and coaches locking arms. The tweet read: “The Mizzou Family stands as one. We are united. We are behind our players.”
The protests began after the student government president, who is black, said in September that someone in a passing pickup truck hurled a racial slur at him. Several days before the homecoming parade, members of a black student organization said slurs were directed at them. Also, a swastika drawn in feces was found recently in a dormitory bathroom.
Jonathan Butler, a black graduate student, is nearly a week into a hunger strike to call attention to racial problems at the state’s flagship university.
Many of the protests have been led by an organization called Concerned Student 1950, which gets its name from the year the university accepted its first black student.
Its members blocked Wolfe’s car last month and grew angry when he did not step out and talk to them, and they have been conducting a sit-in on a campus plaza since last Monday.
The organization has demanded among other things that Wolfe “acknowledge his white male privilege,” that he be removed immediately, and that the school adopt a mandatory racial-awareness program and hire more black faculty and staff.