Mizzou Incident Rekindles Anger Over Treatment of Black Students

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A year after protests over race relations at the University of Missouri at Columbia forced its chancellor and the system’s president to step down, the university once again finds itself roiled by anger over racial slurs hurled at black students.

But unlike last fall, when the targets of those insults complained that no one appeared to be listening, the administration moved quickly on Wednesday to express outrage and promise a thorough response.

It temporarily suspended Delta Upsilon, the fraternity whose members reportedly shouted racial epithets and obscenities on Tuesday night at two members of a student governing body known as the Legion of Black Collegians.

The university released a statement saying that the campus police had identified the students involved and had notified the Office of Student Conduct.

And the interim chancellor of the Columbia campus, Henry C. (Hank) Foley, met with angry students who gathered on Wednesday afternoon in the student center to vent and support one another.

Mr. Foley, in the university’s statement, said this is “a new day on campus” where racism wouldn’t be tolerated.

“I can’t prevent someone from making a racial slur like this,” he said in remarks to reporters at the student center that were videotaped and circulated on Twitter. “We can’t be everywhere all the time, but we can raise our expectations of student conduct and behavior.”

Students, he said, “are here to study and be educated and feel good about their future. They’re not here to be insulted.”

The incident brought back painful memories of the events that led up to last fall’s turmoil, which inspired protests around the country.

The president of the student body at the time reported having been accosted and called a racist epithet, as did members of the Legion of Black Collegians. Their complaints, they contended, were mostly ignored.

In the wake of the ensuing protests, which included a graduate student’s hunger strike, the university rolled out an ambitious, multimillion-dollar diversity plan. Among the goals: doubling its percentage of faculty members from underrepresented groups over the next four years, to 13.4 percent.

Turmoil at Mizzou

Last fall student protests over race relations rocked the University of Missouri at Columbia. Now Mizzou’s leaders are striving to meet students’ demands while restoring stability and the public’s faith in their institution.

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Dashed Hopes

Given the focus on improving the campus’s racial climate, Tuesday’s incident was jarring to many students, but not surprising to others.

And while they were generally encouraged by the statements of solidarity that poured in from across the campus, some questioned whether those would translate into real shifts in attitudes.

Jalyn Henderson, a junior who is majoring in journalism, said she was pleased to see the administration responding more quickly this year in acknowledging the problem. Ms. Henderson, who is black, said she still found the whole incident disheartening. “Racism isn’t going to be eradicated in one year, but I really thought we had made more progress,” she said. “Even though it’s one specific incident, it sheds light on the fact that there still are people we haven’t reached.”

Reuben Faloughi, a doctoral student in psychology and an original member of Concerned Student 1950, the group that led last year’s protests, said he wasn’t surprised by the incident.

He said the university needed to focus more of its outreach on white students who he said have not been engaged in the conversations about race.

“I teach a course in diversity and social justice in the College of Education, and a lot of students have never had to critically analyze their identities,” he said. “It makes sense that we’d have these incidents.”

The Legion of Black Collegians expressed its outrage over the incident in a statement that was widely circulated on Twitter.

The group expressed frustration at what it saw as the lack of progress in changing behaviors and attitudes on the campus.

“It is blatantly obvious that all of this superficial work has been nothing more than a discussion with little action behind it,” it said. “Quite frankly, WE. ARE. SICK. OF. THIS!”

Underlying Tensions

Marquise Griffin, a black graduate student whose focus is on higher-education leadership, said he understands that the administration can’t respond quickly enough to satisfy critics who would have liked, for instance, to see the students who were responsible for the racist taunts immediately expelled.

But he said he’s “exasperated and apprehensive because it feels like it’s happening all over again.” The university’s response, he said, “will determine how much unrest is produced by this.”

Mr. Griffin also works in the Office of Parent Relations, where he fielded two calls from upset mothers on Wednesday. “Both were very angry and wondering if the school is unsafe for their daughters,” he said. “They felt like the school wasn’t doing enough to support black students.”

Nerves were already raw this fall for students who experienced last year’s unrest.

“There are a lot of underlying tensions being played out this fall. Students are still healing from last fall, so when something like this happens, it’s like setting off a match at a gasoline station,” said Mr. Griffin.

Berkley Hudson, an associate professor of journalism and chair of the Faculty Council Committee on Race Relations, said the university had taken important steps since last fall, but it needed to push harder.

“Given everything we went through last fall, there’s a lot of defensiveness and misunderstanding” that make conversations difficult, he said.

“Movements to make the campus more inclusive feel like forced PC culture to some,” Mr. Griffin agreed. “There’s resentment there.”

Student-government leaders also weighed in, condemning the recent “bombardment of blatant racism” and urging students to report incidents of racism and discrimination to the university’s Office for Civil Rights and Title IX.

A statement from the undergraduate student government’s executive cabinet urged students “to take the time to get educated about the social inequities that our peers face every single day,” and said that it is time “to show each other that we have learned from our past and are moving toward a more enlightened future.”

The university’s Panhellenic Association, which represents its sororities, also registered disgust over the incident.

“To members of the black community present in the Panhellenic Association who search for friendship amongst a community who is content to call them sisters to their faces and racial slurs behind their backs, we acknowledge you,” it said in a written statement. “To members of the black community continuously being told that they are lesser by members of our community, we acknowledge you.”

Katherine Mangan writes about community colleges, completion efforts, and job training, as well as other topics in daily news. Follow her on Twitter @KatherineMangan, or email her at katherine.mangan@chronicle.com.