[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:
And I mean that when I say I’m not sure. I’m just not close enough to any of these situations to know whether the problems are legitimate or not. But it does make me wonder if we’re heading for a year or two where it’s the trendy thing to do, just protest and demand the school President’s removal.
[/quote]
Here’s what I do know about Mizzou, living fairly proximal to the campus (about 100 miles away), and having former students on campus and personally knowing two faculty members that work there:
The racial sentiments tied initially back to what happened in Ferguson. Apparently no one in an official capacity made a statement about the issue, and supposedly little, if any, leeway was given for the campus media to cover the incident in a sufficient manner. Mizzou is one of the top journalism schools in the US, and it apparently draws a respectable student population from St. Louis and the surrounding metropolitan region.
Anger towards the administration had been simmering since earlier this year. The university decided to stop paying for health insurance for graduate assistants and research assistants. The administration double-backed, after graduate assistants demonstrated, threatened a walkout, started pursuing formation of a union, and, as key to what went down on Monday, joined forces with the 1950 group protesting discrimination. That was all on top of a few incidents of alleged racial hostility, promulgated by social media, where a few notable black students on campus publicized their apparently being a victim of racial epithets or slurs by heretofore anonymous purveyors. Finally, there was the whole swastika made out of fecal matter that appeared on campus a week or two ago.
During the whole Planned Parenthood debacle earlier this fall, Mizzou came under fire from some Republicans for ties that its medical center and medical school had to Planned Parenthood. Mizzou severed most of those ties, apparently, which then drew some pretty major ire from liberals who accused the administration and the systemic hierarchy of yielding to political pressure, at the expense of students, many of whom are from lower socioeconomic classes or students of color. Again, tying the issue to disenfranchisement of the poor and/or other social minorities exacerbated the expediency of the message here. There were apparently other minor faculty vs. administration grievances that plague most campuses, which just added fuel to the fire.
Finally, when the student body president was the recipient of said racial epithets, and the administration was seen as being slow, week or apathetic to respond, the perfect storm commenced. The football team demonstrated that the power of money lies with its being green.