The University of Missouri’s president, Tim Wolfe, stepped down Monday morning after months of racial tension, growing protests by African-American students, the threat of a walkout by faculty and a strike by football players who said he hadn’t done enough to combat racism on campus. Reverends Emmett G. Price III and Irene Monroe joined Jim Braude and guest host Jared Bowen (of WGBH’sOpen Studio) for their regular Monday feature, "All Revved Up” on Boston Public Radio to discuss Wolfe’s retirement, and how events at Mizzou could rock the nation.
Questions are paraphrased, and responses are edited where noted [...].
What is your take on the university president, Tim Wolfe, stepping down? I was in Kansas City, Missouri, a couple of years ago, and it was very profound to me how divided that city is in terms of race. It’s almost literally divided, in terms of self-segregation.
PRICE: I think the climate that you have shared is absolutely correct. I used to teach at Washington University in St Louis. I was there from the year 2000 or 2001, around that time. St Louis, as a city, is polarized, either white or black. The way people address themselves is, ‘what street do you live on?’ because which street you live on means you know what side of town do you live on. These challenges have been going on for quite some time. The students at Mizzou, (the University of Missouri) were saying that from the Michael Brown situation happened, the time where he was murdered, that there was no response by the university climate. This is not just black students, but it was a student association government, that said that we need for the institution to provide mental health counselors, we need to provide a climate where all students have equity and justice and can express themselves, and that never happened. As things continue to go on, and you have all these other scenarios and racial incidents that we’ve talked about across the country, these students continue to cry out and suggest we need some help from the administration.
MONROE: There have been other racial incidents, too. We all have recently found out about a fecal swastika. The whole idea is that this is just not a safe campus. But the type of tension that is certainly there, you would expect it. With the Michael Brown incident, these kids come out of those communities. Equally as important—the institution itself has had a high attrition rate, in terms not only of students leaving, but of faculty and staff. They can’t keep people of color there. There’s also another problem, which I thought was really wonderful in terms of student athletes. I hope it becomes a paradigm for other schools across the country. Now, where the activism is really stemming from is that since [the football team] brings most of the money, they have the kind of clout to bring about systemic change. It doesn’t come from a moral place, it comes from a place of money.
The football players said they would not play any more games until Wolfe was gone. They were not just talking the talk, they were walking the walk.
MONROE: They were probably going to lose something up to a million dollars. It’s a shame that money has to drive the moral rightness of a situation, but I applaud them for taking action, because too often, athletes are separated from the campus community. In these huge football arenas, white students are okay about having black athletes as long as they stay in their place, but when you want to be a part of the student body and join certain fraternities, that’s where you see a lot of that racial tension play out.
Did Wolfe step down because of the football team?
PRICE: He’s a Mizzou alum, his mother was a Mizzou alum, his father taught at Mizzou, and so you have the alumnae aspect of it that they don’t want any more bad publicity. If there’s anything that scares any university, it’s bad publicity.
You mention the power of athletes and how they’re separated on campuses. I was so disappointed last year when a ton of pro-athletes spoke out against Clippers owner Don Sterling, but none of them would refuse to play.
MONROE: These students have nothing to lose, because truth be told, they’re not getting a college education, they’re just there to drive the football team. If they walk out, many of them will leave there with no degree and go back to their communities. I think that when you have a demographic group like that, meaning nothing to lose—you have everything to gain….
PRICE: I disagree. The notion is, you have Jonathan L. Butler, who is a graduate student, who is on an eight-day hunger strike. This guy was willing to die in order to get this president out of here. These other students were willing to jeopardize their collegiate opportunities, their scholarships, their families… many of these individuals are second or third generation from Mizzou, or second or third generation aspirants of finally getting a family member into the school. They had everything to lose.
MONROE: Many of the college athletes are first generation in terms of going to college. Many of them will leave the institution without a degree. They’re really just there to play sports. I’m just hoping that in that moment that they’re there, that black athletes will pool together and bring about systemic change.
PRICE: I agree with that.
To think that a major university like the University of Missouri could have a problem like this— a systemic problem, that goes on and on, where you have these outrageous incidents...is this all about geography?
PRICE: No, no, no. The issue here is that the university administration did not deal with it. These situations, these racialized situations, these prejudiced situations, discriminatory situations, happen all over the country. you have young people who either don’t have the social milieu, don’t have the cultural background, or don’t have the courage to do the right thing, and who do silly stuff all the time. We still have blackface parties, we still have minstrel parties, we still have “hip hop parties” that are really minstrelsy— the challenge is that many of these institutions and universities do something about it when it happens.
MONROE: They also do it during orientation week. The university doesn’t have an orientation program that deals with diversity. It doesn’t have a diverse curriculum. When you talk about having Latina studies or LGBTQ studies, it’s always the perception that you’re dumbing down the curriculum, you’re not following the traditional college curriculum. It fails on so many levels, here’s an example of it, they didn’t do due diligence. It just can’t happen on the football team, or during a football game. It has to happen in the classroom, it has to happen in the residence hall, but it also has to happen in terms of your faculty.
Just last May at Emerson College here on the Boston Common, students protested, demanding sensitivity training and racism education. There was even a swastika written in the elevator and racist slurs. And these protesters didn’t end up getting what they wanted.
MONROE: It’s interesting, we always seem upset when we hear of these racial or homophobic incidents in Northern-perceived cities and states, but as I always say, the only difference the Mason-Dixon line makes is the distinction between up-South and down-South. The only thing that you can do—because a university is a marketplace of ideas— is make that space safe and not only tolerable, but accepting of all people.
To hear All Revved Up, click the audio link above. Rev. Emmett G. Price III is a professor of music at Northeastern University, and the author of The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture. Rev. Irene Monroe is a syndicated religion columnist who writes for Huffington Postand Bay Windows.
