By SELENA ESTRADA
Student Writer
The president of the University of Missouri, Tim Wolfe, has recently resigned because of racial incidents that have been occurring on the campus located at Columbia, MO.
In 2014, Michael Brown was shot by a white police officer. He was a black 18-year old that lived in Ferguson, which is a few hours from Columbia. After this incident, there were several racial incidents that occurred on campus, which lead to the resignation of Wolfe.
Students had posted terrorist threats on social media against blacks and a couple of the students have been arrested. Swastika signs were found drawn on residence hall walls; the Black Students Association president was disrespectfully called the n-word; during homecoming, protesters blocked Tim Wolfe’s vehicle; a student who was on a hunger strike said he wouldn’t eat until the president resigned. These were just a few of the incidents that occurred.
After interviewing a few Northwestern students regarding these events, the majority of students seem to agree that Wolfe deciding to resign was a good decision. Below are the opinions of four Northwestern students about the Missouri University incident.
A Northwestern sophomore, Juan Villa said, “The incident that happened in the University of Missouri was not properly taking action through Mr. Wolfe. Since he was the president of the University, he should have been paying closer attention to the situation. I believe he made the right decision to resign from his president position, and hopefully someone can take better action of what is occurring in Columbia, Missouri.”
Northwestern freshman, Brady Hanley said, “It’s a little hard to go through something like that and then have your president resign, because you no longer have that person that has been there, and now they’re putting someone new into a tough situation. It can be very hard to have a new person step in and do something about it.”
Northwestern freshman Tobi Barker said, “He should have resigned. He didn’t know how to handle the situation, so it was good that he resigned. He should have taken action towards the situation.”
Northwestern sophomore Corey Shirey said, “I think that the school should have handled it a lot sooner. Their former president made the right decision of stepping down, but it should have never come to that. It should have been handled months ago… Because of the mismanagement, I’m proud of the president’s decision to step down and hand of the torch to someone who can handle the situation. I am proud of the student body. It shows that we pay attention to what is happening in our campuses and around our state and nation. Racism has no need in higher education… I’m proud of the student body for taking a stand against something that matters and trying to put a halt to racism.”