The University of Missouri chancellor R. Bowen Loftin will resign from his position at the end of the year, amidst the racism scandal of recent days
According KOMU 8 News, the chancellor of the University of Missouri, R. Bowen Loftin, will resign at the end of the calendar year. This is the second big resignation at the University on Monday. Former university president Tim Wolfe resigned earlier this morning as a part of the racism allegations plaguing the Columbia campus.
BREAKING: MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin announced resignation, effective end of this year.
— KOMU 8 News (@KOMUnews) November 9, 2015
This all started back on November 2 when graduate student Jonathan Butler began a hunger strike in protest over the blatant racism he believed was running rampant on the Columbia campus. Events stemming as far back as 2010 had made it an uncomfortable environment for certain minority groups.
Butler was not going to end his hunger strike until former university president resigned. After a week of starving himself, Wolfe did resign and university chancellor Loftin followed suit, albeit delaying the resignation until the end of the term.
What brought these serious of events to light was the threat of a boycott by the University of Missouri’s football team. The Tigers were planning on boycotting as student-athlete’s to bring light to Butler’s campus-wide concerns. Though the team was supposedly split on this issue of forfeiting their game with the BYU Cougars in Kansas City in protest, head coach Gary Pinkel was in full support of his players’ commitment to not play until the issues were eventually resolved.
Now that two ranking men within the university system will be out of office by next term, perhaps the racial tension at the University of Missouri campus will subside. The game is back on between the Tigers and the Cougars. Missouri needs to win two of their final three games to become bowl eligible.