Students demand reporters give them a "safe space" at the University of Missouri, on Monday, Nov. 9, 2015 (Photo: Daily Beast video screenshot)
Timothy Wolfe, the president of the University of Missouri system, resigned on Monday over perceived racial bias, but it did not appease students. Instead, they threatened the media and demanded a "safe space."
"[I hope everyone will] use my resignation to heal and start talking again," Wolfe said, the New York Times reported. His decision capped off more than a week of tense relations among his office and campus students and staffers.
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Campus chancellor R. Bowen Loftin also announced he's resigning at the end of this year, after deans of nine different departments called for his firing. Come January 1, 2016, he'll be the director of research facility development.
In the wake of the chaos, reporters and journalists descended on thousands of protesters filling the school's quad, but students were hostile to the added scrutiny.
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“No comment! No media. Safe space!" they chanted, the Daily Beast reported Monday.
Students locked arms and shoved reporters in an attempt to prevent them reaching protesters. One student threatened to call the cops on the press for doing its job.
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"We're calling the police because you aren't respecting us," a student yelled.
"This guy shouldn’t be here. And don’t let him back in," said a protester while removing a reporter from the "safe space," the Daily Beast reported.
It took two hours before the students decided to disband their chain and begin celebrating.
The day started with faculty members calling on professors and staffers to stage a walkout to protest what students were alleging was a president who failed to properly address several perceived racial incidents at the school.
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But the racial tensions go back farther. Students first protested what they said were unfair campus conditions for minorities in September after the student government president, who's black, said passengers in a truck drove by him on campus and shouted racial epithets. Shortly after, black student-union members said they were treated similarly by a drunken white student. And shortly after that, dormitory residents found a pile of human feces with a swastika swirled in it.
Students gathered at a protest on campus on Sunday, but tempers flared there when a couple of trucks drove past flying the Confederate flag.
One black student at that rally, Abigail Hollis, said the school appeared "unhealthy and unsafe for us," Fox News reported.
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On the heels of that rally, leaders with the Concerned Faculty pressed for its members to hold a teach-in on racial diversity and tolerance at one site that's been used for several of the student protests in recent days.
On top of all that: University of Missouri football players vowed to quit team activities until Wolfe was fired. And that threat was underscored when coach Gary Pinkel and athletic director Mack Rhoades joined a hunger strike initiated by the student body, while affirming their support for their players.
Up until Monday morning, Wolfe only acknowledged "change is needed" at the university and pledged to draw up a plan for diversity and tolerance that could be implemented across the system. But he finally caved to the pressures and quit.
"It is my belief we stopped listening to each other," Wolfe said, the New York Times reported. "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 and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred."
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The Board of Curators is the entity in charge of finding and appointing a new president.
But the tensions are likely just getting started.
The Columbia Tribune published a list of demands issued to administrators by Concerned Student 1950, the group calling for Wolfe's departure in the first place, and according to the text of the document, their protests are just getting started.
In addition for Wolfe's resignation, the group also wanted him to "acknowledge his white male privilege, recognize that systems of oppression exist, and ... admit to his gross negligence, allowing his driver to hit one of the demonstrators ... and refusing to intervene when Columbia Police Department used excessive force with demonstrators," the Columbia Tribune reported.
The group also demanded in its list: The University of Missouri to meet with the "Legion of Black Collegians' demands that were presented in 1969 for the betterment of the black community," and that the university "creates and enforces comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum" that's mandatory for all students, staffers and administrators.
"This curriculum must be vetted, maintained and overseen by a board comprised of students, staff and faculty of color," the demand list states.
But there is more: The group also demanded the University of Missouri increase its percentage of black faculty and staff by 10 percent by the end of the 2018 school year and that officials increase funding for "social justices centers on campus" to hire "additional professionals, particularly those of color," and to pay for additional mental health professionals, "particularly those of color."
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