Timeline leading to University of Missouri president’s resignation over race tension

World Today

Jonathan Butler, center, addresses a crowd following the announcement that University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe would resign Monday, Nov. 9, 2015, at the university in Columbia, Mo. Butler has ended his hunger strike as a result of the resignation. (AP Photo/Jeff Roberson)

University of Missouri (UM) system president Tim Wolfe resigned from his post on Monday morning with the football team and others on campus in open revolt over what they saw as indifference to racial tensions at the school.

President Tim Wolfe, a former business executive with no previous experience in academic leadership, took “full responsibility for the frustration” students expressed and said their complaints were “clear” and “real.”

For months, black student groups had complained that Wolfe was unresponsive to racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white main campus of the state’s four-college system. The complaints came to a head two days ago, when at least 30 black football players announced that they would not play until the president left. A graduate student also went on a weeklong hunger strike.

Here’s how these events unfolded.

Story compiled with information from the Associated Press and the Colombia Missourian.