Monday morning, University of Missouri graduate student Jonathan Butler hadn’t eaten in seven days.
Luckily for Butler’s health—and many would argue luckily for the university as a whole—his hunger strike ended Monday morning when Tim Wolfe, University of Missouri System President, officially resigned from his position. In a Facebook post published at 10:36 a.m. Butler stated that: “The #MizzouHungerStrike is officially over!”
As campus climate worsened over the past few months, students began to direct their anger towards Wolfe, who gave no response to members of Concerned Student 1950 (the year African American students were first admitted to MU) during a protest that blocked Wolfe’s car during homecoming on Oct. 8, according to the Missourian. This student group issued a list of eight demands, including the request for Wolfe’s resignation. On Oct. 27, Concerned Student 1950 met with Wolfe to no result.
Some time later, a swastika was discovered drawn in feces on a bathroom wall in MU’s Gateway Hall. Days after this incident of hatred and the dead-end meeting between Wolfe and Concerned Student 1950, Butler began his hunger strike.
However, even Butler’s hunger strike and numerous protests from many campus entities didn’t bring the result he and the supporters of Concerned Student 1950 were hoping for. Wolfe continued to issue statements regarding his continued efforts against racism on campus.
The tipping point seems to be a tweet sent from the Legion of Black Collegians account from black MU football players which stated “We will no longer participate in any football related activities until President Tim Wolfe resigns or is removed due to his negligence towards marginalized students’ experiences.” The football team as a whole, coach Gary Pinkel and the athletic department all stood behind these students.
Yesterday, just two days after the football team’s announcement, Wolfe officially resigned. While we at The DePauw laud MU’s football team for standing in protest against institutional racism, we can’t help but wonder: why did it take the action (or rather, non-action) of one of the university’s biggest money-making tools to finally force Wolfe’s resignation?
While this is clearly not a decision that Wolfe came to lightly, and weeks if not months of debate most likely went into his resignation, the timeline seems to indicate that MU’s football team’s boycott—not the numerous other boycotts, protests and Butler’s personal hunger strike—was the breaking point.
In some ways this speaks to an overarching problem with American universities: money is of supreme importance. It is no longer the education, the campus climate or even the health of the students that is of supreme importance, but the university’s ability to make money.
Though on a smaller scale, DePauw can be faulted for this mindset. Our endowment has grown enormously in the past few years, campus climate issues have been bubbling to the surface--just take the visit and reaction to the Campus Ministries USA visit which resulted with two African American members of DePauw's community pinned to the ground by law enforcement as one example--with very few tangible solutions presented. Universities have become in many ways businesses, and until students are valued over the resources they represent, tensions of all kinds will continue to manifest themselves between administrators and the students.