By Rachel Vigil

Amid protests and hunger strikes, the University of Missouri System’s president, Timothy Wolfe, has stepped down, leaving many students hopeful that under new leadership real progress may be made to combat racism present on campus.

Wolfe resigned on Nov. 9 in response to one student’s hunger strike, student-led protests, and the refusal of the university’s football team to play until the president’s resignation.

Movements toward a more inclusive university and campus were initially sparked in 2010 when two white students dropped a line of cotton balls in front of the  Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center. In response to this, a diversity initiative called One Mizzou was formed, but it lost attention soon afterwards and was disbanded. Five years later on Sept. 12, 2015, student government president Payton Head complained about bigotry and anti-gay sentiment on campus in a Facebook post. Later, he also spoke of an incident where students in the back of a pickup truck yelled racial slurs at him.

This sparked a protest on Sept. 24, named “Racism Lives Here.” Similar protests against racism and the faculty’s minimal efforts to combat such racism occurred subsequently.

Concerned Student 1950 was created in Oct. 2015 to combat racism. Their name refers to the first year that an African American student was allowed to attend the university. It, along with other student groups, continued to lead protests throughout October.

Then, on Oct. 24, a swastika smeared onto a residence bathroom wall was found. The investigator of it noted that it could have been, “Meant to offend and threaten a large population of our campus community in addition to Jewish students.”

Calls for the resignation of the university’s president were made because the school’s African American population felt that he was not doing enough to address the racism on campus. On Nov. 3 student Jonathan Butler launched a hunger strike until President Wolfe resigned.

For the same purpose, the African American football players of the school declared that they would not play or practice until his resignation on Nov. 8 of this year.

Although President Wolfe said on Nov. 8 that he would not step down, one day later he announced his resignation.

Now that the president has resigned, the direction of the protesters has not changed, but attention to it has died down. Students have said that they are working directly with the university faculty in order to integrate the school more and reduce racism.

One of their goals is to achieve an increase of the African American population among the staff and faculty to 10%. Students in many of the activist groups involved in the protest held a meeting with the University of Missouri System of Curators which exemplifies the conversation that has begun between students and faculty. The students of Mizzou seem committed to real change and the direction they are headed may just result in that.