In 1967, it was called “Columbia”…
I have searched far and wide, and this appears to be the full extent of the alleged provocation for the revolt of black students against the president of the University of Missouri, Tim Wolfe:
Sept. 12: Missouri Students Association president Payton Head posts about a racial slur directed at him.
Payton Head, MU senior and president of MSA, renewed the dialogue about racism and the racial climate on the University’s Columbia campus after publishing a Facebook post about his first-hand experience with racism. The night before, Head said he was walking around campus when the passenger of a pickup repeatedly shouted the “N-word” at him.
Head’s statement went viral on social media, and many people shared their support of Head and frustration with MU’s response, or lack thereof, to his post. “I’d had experience with racism before, like microaggressions, but that was the first time I’d experienced in-your-face racism,” Head told a Missourian reporter.
Oct. 5: Legion of Black Collegians members are the targets of racial slurs by a man on campus.
Another instance of racism brought the racial climate on campus again to the attention of students and administrators.
The Legion of Black Collegians shared a letter on social media describing the group’s encounter with overt racism the night before. The group was rehearsing for a performance at Traditions Plaza when a “young man” talking on his cellphone walked up to the group. After being politely and repeatedly asked to leave, the man walked away but referenced LBC members using racial slurs.
That same day, MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin responded with a post of his own, acknowledging and condemning racism at MU.
“There was a silence that fell over us all, almost in disbelief that this racial slur in particular was used in our vicinity,” Naomi Collier, president of MU’s NAACP chapter and member of the LBC’s activities committee, wrote in the letter.
Oct. 8: Loftin announces mandatory online diversity training for faculty, staff and students, which is met with widespread skepticism.
The training came after a number of accounts of overt racism experience by students on campus, but was met with skepticism and suspicion.Jonathan Butler, MU graduate student and campus activist, wrote a letter to Loftin saying the training was “a step in the right direction, but it is not enough.”
More recently, someone used human feces to draw a swastika inside Mizzou’s Gateway Hall.
Because of these episodes—none of which involve perpetrators who have been identified, or who have even been proved to be students, and none of which were remotely within the control of the University, Wolfe has been harassed, with black students demanding that he resign. Black graduate student Jonathan Butler began a hunger strike last week, promising to forgo all food and nutrition until Wolfe steps down. Now a group of black University of Missouri football players have announced that they will not participate in team activities until Wolfe resigns.
This is redolant of the 196o’s, and there is no good way for a university to respond. especially when the grievances are as attenuated as these are. What exactly is Wolfe supposed to do to stop random incidents like these from occurring? He had made some unpopular administrative decisions that had nothing to do with race, making him vulnerable to attack, and apparently this is why he is being targeted as if he drew the swastika. Such demonstrations and protests are disingenuous; students may be legitimately upset, but they are using random incidents as an opportunity to exert power for the sake of power. If the University capitulates, it will have simply given up its administrative authority to public relations extortion. If it doesn’t capitulate, the entire campus will be divided, students will reflexively side with the students, and chaos will reign, presumably succeeded by dictated racial spoils, as outlined in the black students’ list of eight demands, including enforcement of mandatory racial awareness and inclusion training for all faculty, staff and students; an increase in the percentage of black faculty and staff; and an increase in funding to hire mental health professionals for the MU Counseling Center, particularly those of color; and more staff for social justice centers on campus.
You know: political indoctrination and re-education.
If I were a student there, I’d transfer now.
This is a race-based power grab, inspired, I assume, by the success of Black Lives Matters in cowing white politicians and the media into support, obeisance and crippling white guilt. Why else would this be happening now? Missouri isn’t alone: there is a similar manufactured race crisis at Yale. There the provocation is vague and trivial—one incident is vague, and the other is trivial. Students claimed that a fraternity party was blocked at the door by a student saying “White girls only,” and the fraternity denies it. As with “Hands up! Don’t shoot!,” the white racism narrative is just presumed to be true. The second “outrage” was an e-mail from the associate master of Silliman College, one of Yale’s 12 undergraduate residential communities, that urged students not to take offense at Halloween costumes they might find insensitive. (The simple translation of this e-mail is “Oh, grow up.”) The Yale President has decided to take the less stressful route of grovelling to the protesters.
History tells us that this will spread around the country, not because campuses are suddenly racist, just as they are not suddenly filled with rapists. It will happen because activists will see an opportunity, because college administrators are weak and eager to avoid confrontation, and because the Obama administration has seeded divisiveness and racial distrust throughout the culture, the President’s primary and most destructive legacy.
Since the school is doomed for the foreseeable future no matter what it does, it would be courageous of Wolfe to do the right thing and tell the students that they don’t run the school and won’t, tell Butler that extorting the school is disruptive and unacceptable, and he can either eat on campus or starve off of it, and tell the football players that they can forfeit the games and their scholarships if they choose: he’s not putting them in charge of the university.
In the meantime, until the University of Missouri board caves in to the demands (and it will), he should look for another job.
Update: Wolfe has resigned.
___________________________
Facts: Missourian, Washington Post, St. Louis Post-Dispatch 1, 2
Ethics Alarms 
Thanks for posting on this Jack. I think it’s worthwhile seeing exactly what Concerned Student 1950 (I thought this was an anonymous student at first. Can you say Orwellian, boys and girls?) has demanded:
“The student group leading the protest, Concerned Student 1950, issued its list of demands, which the Columbia Daily Tribune published, to the university last month. It’s unclear if the university has taken steps to adopt any of the proposed changes, or if the striking football players want all of these demands met.
I. We demand that the University of Missouri System President, Tim Wolfe, writes a handwritten apology to the Concerned Student 1-9-5-0 demonstrators and holds a press conference in the Mizzou Student Center reading the letter. In the letter and at the press conference, Tim Wolfe must acknowledge his white male privilege, recognize that systems of oppression exist, and provide a verbal commitment to fulfilling Concerned Student 1-9-5-0 demands. We want Tim Wolfe to admit to his gross negligence, allowing his driver to hit one of the demonstrators, consenting to the physical violence of bystanders, and lastly refusing to intervene when Columbia Police Department used excessive force with demonstrators.
II. We demand the immediate removal of Tim Wolfe as UM system president. After his removal a new amendment to UM system policies must be established to have all future UM system president and Chancellor positions be selected by a collective of students, staff, and faculty of diverse backgrounds.
III. We demand that the University of Missouri meets the Legion of Black Collegians’ demands that were presented in 1969 for the betterment of the black community.
IV. We demand that the University of Missouri creates and enforces comprehensive racial awareness and inclusion curriculum throughout all campus departments and units, mandatory for all students, faculty, staff, and administration. This curriculum must be vetted, maintained, and overseen by a board comprised of students, staff, and faculty of color.
V. We demand that by the academic year 2017-2018, the University of Missouri increases the percentage of black faculty and staff campus-wide to 10%.
VI. We demand that the University of Missouri composes a strategic 10 year plan by May 1, 2016 that will increase retention rates for marginalized students, sustain diversity curriculum and training, and promote a more safe and inclusive campus.
VII. We demand that the University of Missouri increases funding and resources for the University of Missouri Counseling Center for the purpose of hiring additional mental health professionals — particularly those of color, boosting mental health outreach and programming across campus, increasing campus-wide awareness and visibility of the counseling center, and reducing lengthy wait times for prospective clients.
VIII. We demand that the University of Missouri increases funding, resources, and personnel for the social justices centers on campus for the purpose of hiring additional professionals, particularly those of color, boosting outreach and programming across campus, and increasing campus-wide awareness and visibility.”
Sounds like mind control to me.
So they demand that the university defy Brown v. Board of Education, 347 U.S. 483 (1954)?
“Since the school is doomed for the foreseeable future no matter what it does, it would be courageous of Wolfe to do the right thing and tell the students that they don’t run the school and won’t, tell Butler that extorting the school is disruptive and unacceptable, and he can either eat on campus or starve off of it, and tell the football players that they can forfeit the games and their scholarships if they choose: he’s not putting them in charge of the university.”
I was thinking this the whole time I was reading your post…”Well, if you’re going to call for the complete destruction of the people involved, what benefit is there to them agreeing?” If there isn’t any damage control you can do. Don’t. I’d love for one of these outbursts to be shown appropriate scorn.
Start singing “O Canada.”
Power corrupts and it hasn’t taken long for some to get addicted at using that power on everyone, guilty or not.
I wonder how I can convince the University to hire me as President.
I should be able to do the job. It does not take much skill to say, ” Fuck you,” to every student demand.
You have my full support.
Power grab, pure and simple. Once a radical group (or a tribe of savages) senses weakness in the leadership of their target, they go full bore. It’s the nature of the beast. President Wolfe has invited this by his limp wristed response. Now comes the splurge of “racism” and “microaggression” stories, followed by boycotts. Let them, then. And kick those players off the team. Fill in the ranks with walk-ons if you have to, but don’t give another inch. Otherwise, the University of Missouri becomes (if it hasn’t already) another failed school without a meaningful purpose.
“Limp wristed?” MICROAGGRESSION! Maybe even a macroaggression!
All the news articles I read are supportive of the protesters. I’m sure President Obama and all the Democratic candidates are as well. This is progressive politics as normal. We can expect more of this and more extreme examples as long as the US insists on being progressive.
I fear I may have the choice of voting for President Trump or this.
It’s Sixties politics on steroids. There has to something more behind this. Now the black faculty members are striking? Because of two unconfirmed uses of racial epithets by unidentified individuals —-not even necessarily students—and a swastika episode (when these are shown to be false flag episodes a large percentage of the time)? How can this possibly be provocation for going after the university President? How is punishing him possibly “racial justice” or any kind of justice?
This has to be a pretext for the faculty to “get” an unpopular administrator. Has to be…but I can’t find any evidence for why. Mesanwhile, if this succeeds, will any President have to step down if a couple of students say someone has looked at them with a racist scowl on their face? Why not?
This is ugly and dangerous, and those knee-jerk and Machiavellian progressives encouraging it because they sense a route to power are playing with fire—and that’s an understatement because it’s early and I’m not quite awake. If the idea is to set race relations back 75 years, this is how to start the process.
You are ignoring the obvious. The progressive groups have reached critical mass in the media. They have seen that they can force their agenda on the flimsiest of reasons and they are going for it. You forget that progressive groups make these demands all the time at all large institutions. College presidents have to appease them with task forces, studies, minority lounges, and additional diversity employees all the time. It has reached the point that they can shut down the university and make it do their bidding, so they are. There doesn’t have to be another motive, they try to do this all the time.
The difference is that they have the critical political and media support to back them up. President Obama’s continual forays into racial division, Ferguson, NYC, the new Title IX rape tribunals, Bernie Sanders caving to a takeover of his campaign speeches, all point to an environment that lets them take over. Ten years ago, this would have been 200 black students protesting, but the football team wouldn’t have threatened to go on strike, the coaches would have yanked their scholarships and given them to someone else. Today, the coach doesn’t dare do that. His players would walk out, he would lose his team, he would lose his job. This isn’t Notre Dame, you know.
Amusingly enough, Charles Green warned us to study the fate of Robespierre. I wonder, given the atrocious effect Left wing revolutions have on cultures, if he ought not to take his own advice and study just what happened with the French Revolution.
Because hyped up emotionalism and knee jerk mob justice (which is what this is) aimed at scapegoating is the part of the the process and end result of Left wing regimes…
I was thinking the same thing, hence the fire allusion. This is cultural dynamite, being abused by kids, cynics and fools.
The President just resigned. This is the 60s on speed.
Then they can hire someone who can tell these whiners to fuck off.
Or expect the inevitable organizing of groups who will, in the ways and means of their choosing, tell the whiners to fuck off FOR them.
“Sixties Politics on Steroids” is Rage without Reason & Activism without Accountability.
Excellent definition.
The first demand of the SDS thugs who took over my college’s administration building was “No punishment.”
That’s modern civil disobedience for you.
The demands seem down right reasonable to me. After all, they have Roman Numerals outlining their demands. You know someone is serious when they use Roman Numerals.
jvb
This is giving me bad Sixties flashbacks, man. Whoa. Bad trip.
Too bad they don’t teach history any more.
These groups are using the same texts used by the SDS. These groups are literally the descendants of the ‘sixties radical black power movements. So the flashbacks are not mental. History is repeating itself. But don’t expect any pushback from administrators and faculty. They’re reading from the same texts.
They’re pissed off about Michael Brown. Hands up don’t shoot. From an article in The Nation:
The roots of racism at Mizzou run deep and reach back a hell of lot farther than the last year. But this wave of struggle was sparked by what has been seen as the absence of response from the administration over the killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, located just two hours from campus. As grad student Jonathan Butler said to The Washington Post, “There was national coverage, so for the school to not cover that or really address that, and we are only two hours away, I think was a huge mistake on their part and contributed to the current cultural environment that we have. It just shows that there are racially motivated things—murders, assaults, other things—that happen and we are just going to sweep them under the rug.”
What a pity.
The university had come so far, so fast, with Michael Sam.
Hunting season on activists has opened in Missouri.
Thanks—I suspected that. Pathetic. Not enough response to a non-racial incident mischaracterized by sloppy reporting, warped by the lies of a lying pal of the deceased and escalated by a bad police force. Great.
I am confused. By the good Mr. Butler’s comments, the university is two hours away, which would put it somewhere around 120 miles from Ferguson. What stake or interest did the University of Missouri have in the Ferguson, MO, events and there outcome? What should the university have done? How should the university have covered or addressed what happened in Ferguson? Should the university have declared a moment of silence for Mike Brown? How about naming the main street into the campus after him? (If you think that’s a crazy idea, check this out:
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEVi1kIEFW4q0AimYnnIlQ;_ylu=X3oDMTEzbHBkZmliBGNvbG8DYmYxBHBvcwMxBHZ0aWQDRkZSQTEwXzEEc2VjA3Nj?p=sandra+bland+naming&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dsandra%2Bbland%2Bnaming%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-002%26hspart%3Dmozilla&fr=%26fr%3Dyhs-mozilla-002&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DWN.B8t4blfdmWvDkTBfx%252fii0w%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2Fstory%2Fnews%2Fnation%2F2015%2F09%2F23%2Fsandra-bland-road-name-remains%2F72666544%2F&tit=Texas+city+will+keep+road+named+after+Sandra+Bland&l=81&vid=83d564ca0e95690d3fb9e165d793b7b4&sigr=12t6ogmdv&sigb=12v4gqjbq&sigt=11i8odf38&sigi=1210gbhh2&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-002)
Yet, Tim Wolfe resigned today. See, http://www.aol.com/article/2015/11/09/university-of-missouri-president-says-he-will-resign/21261389/?icid=maing-fluid|amp-bon2-t|dl1|sec1_lnk2%26pLid%3D102592924
Does this now mean that mob rule is the rule?
jvb
Yes, and we will find out soon. I’m not a doom and gloom guy. But the Obama administration has been very carefully laying the ground work for a race based double standard based on the timidity of rational people to insist on accountability, facts and fairness. Whoever opposes it risks being a pariah or worse. Courage is not in great supply.
Yes, I believe this kind of crap can make Donald Trump President. I think it’s pretty obvious.
Did Bush do this sort of thing? Or Clinton?
You mean, intentionally set out to divide the nation by race, ethnicity, religion, gender, class, generations and party to create maximum dysfunction and distrust?
No.
I wonder if anyone made a comparison between Barack Obama and Bill Clinton.
If I was to take over in that position my first act would be that the minute the last game was played this season I would abolish the football program and rescind all football scholarships.
My explanation would be that no matter that the goals of the players were, a college can not allow itself to be black mail by a program because of the money they bring in.
You should be president, and that is exactly right.
What Yale SHOULD have said in response to complainants stating that they couldn’t bear to live in the college anymore after the halloween email: ‘Don’t let the door hit you on the way out.’ They effectively have their pick of students to accept. Some customers are too expensive to work with, and oversensitive snowflakes like that should qualify as such for Yale IMO.