University of Missouri President Timothy M. Wolfe resigned on Monday after protesters said he did not do an adequate job of responding to racial issues on campus.
Gathered below are 15 facts about the controversy that the media won't tell you.
1. In August, the university announced it would stop paying for the health insurance of graduate teaching and research assistants. They held demonstrations, began forming a union, and have since united with students concerned about racism. The university eventually recanted the move.
2. The university took heat from student and staff Democrats after it severed ties between its medical schools and the abortion provider Planned Parenthood earlier this year. The groups claimed that administrators caved to Republican demands, and they, too, have since joined in with the racism protests.
3. In September, Student Government President Payton Head said on Facebook that people in a truck drove by him and shouted racial slurs at him.
4. In October, the Legion of Black Collegians was disrupted by a drunk white student while preparing for homecoming. The student reportedly used a racial slur at the time. Disciplinary procedures are pending for the student.
5. Jewish students complained that Wolfe did not do enough after a swastika drawn in feces was found on a campus dormitory bathroom wall.
6. Concerned Student 1950, an activist group, issued a list of demands. It called for Wolfe to acknowledge his "white male privilege," among other things. It also set up an occupying encampment on university grounds.
7. As part of its demands, the group wrote, "We have asked the University to create spaces of healing and it failed to do so." Most interpreted this language as referring to so-called "safe spaces."
8. The group also claims that "students were left stranded, forced to face an increase in tension, and inequality with no systemic support," during the Ferguson protests.
9. Last week, graduate student Jonathan Butler, a veteran of the Ferguson protests that led to rioting, launched a hunger strike. He said he wouldn't eat until Wolfe resigned.
10. In support of Butler's hunger strike, the university football team threatened to boycott its upcoming game against BYU. The game was worth more than $1 million, and some said it was this threat that finally forced Wolfe to resign.
11. Shortly after Wolfe resigned, Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin announced he would also resign his post, but stay with the university in another role.
12. Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon celebrated Wolfe's resignation, saying it was a necessary step toward "healing and reconciliation."
13. Melissa Click, an assistant professor of mass media at the university, allegedly blocked and grabbed the camera of student photographer Tim Tai, 20, so he would not document Monday's public ouster celebrations — his right under the First Amendment.
14. Other students and faculty also trying to block reporters by linking arms chanted, "Hey hey! Ho ho! Reporters have got to go!"
15. In recent years, the university publicly celebrated the coming out of gay, black football player Michael Sam, leading some critics to wonder how racially fraught or intolerant the campus could have been.
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