Missouri University Football Team Analysis

On November 7, 2015 the Missouri University football team announced they were going on strike until the president of the university stepped down. Two days later on November 9, 2015 the president, Timothy M. Wolfe, and chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, of the University of Missouri both resigned from their positions. The strike of the football team and resignation of both university leaders were a result of the same issues. These issues involved multiple racist, sexiest, and homophobic incidents that were reported to Tim Wolfe, the president of the university system since 2012, resulting in no action at all and was reported to actually intentionally avoid the problems. Although these tensions have been growing since August, just recently national
The group responsible for the conducting of these protests is being called “Concerned Student 1950”, which stands for the year the first black student was accepted into the university. Jonathan Butler, a graduate student of the University of Missouri, went on a hunger strike that he said would only end if Wolfe stepped down or he died. The strike, lasting a week, caused the football team, with their coach’s support, to ultimately announce they were also going on strike by not participating in any practices or games. This strike was to continue until Butler ended his strike, which ultimately meant until Wolfe resigned. The football team going on this strike is what attracted the national attention resulting in Wolfe’s resignation two days later. With the team not playing any games meant Mizzou would be forfeiting their upcoming Saturday game against Brigham Young University. By canceling this game it would cost the University of Missouri a one million dollar fine because of a contract between BYU and Mizzou. This fine would have to be paid within thirty days of the cancellation. On November 9 Tim Wolfe announced his resignation right before a meeting with the Board of Curators (the universities governing body) where it was suspected they were going to oust him. Wolfe said he was stepping down not because he was asked to, because he was concerned and wanted to help the campus heal from these events. Wolfe explains how
Although unfortunate, these events show how just a few people speaking out can have such a major impact and how important it is to voice your opinions. It reassures people that everyone has a voice and it should be heard because it is capable of changing something for the better and having a positive impact. These protests increased no only the awareness of the Black Lives Matter movement, but also the support. This can give other people at other universities and schools around the world the motivation to be apart of this movement because this shows that things can change and racism as well as sexism and homophobia, is not expectable and does not have to be tolerated in the world that we live in. This also ties into the law of Freedom of Speech. Everyone here, on both sides on the argument, are just expressing their thoughts and concerns through the freedom of speech. System wide initiatives are being implemented at the University of Missouri this April to promote diversity and inclusion strategies of minorities so incidents like these are prevented from