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Turmoil at Mizzou

In the fall of 2016, student protests over race relations rocked the University of Missouri at Columbia. The demonstrations prompted the university system’s president and the flagship’s chancellor to resign, and spawned a wave of similar unrest at colleges across the country. Now Mizzou’s leaders face the difficult tasks of trying to meet students’ demands for change while restoring stability and the public’s faith in their institution. Read more Chronicle coverage of the turmoil in Missouri in this collection of articles and essays.

The U. of Missouri's flagship at Columbia again has been plunged into controversy after racist epithets and obscenities were shouted at black students. For many, the latest incident painfully recalls the events that led to demonstrations that rocked the campus last year.
Race in Academe
Mizzou Incident Rekindles Anger Over Treatment of Black Students
By Katherine Mangan
The flagship again has been plunged into controversy after racist epithets and obscenities were shouted at black students. For many, the latest incident painfully recalls the events that led to demonstrations that rocked the campus last year.
The U. of Missouri at Columbia, rocked by protests last year over its racial climate, has unveiled an ambitious multimillion-dollar plan to diversify its faculty. But experts say the follow-through will be as important as the rollout.
Academic Hiring
What It Will Take for Missouri to Meet Its Faculty-Diversity Goal
By Beth McMurtrie
The university, rocked by campus protests last year, has unveiled an ambitious multimillion-dollar plan. Experts say the follow-through will be as important as the rollout.
Cheryl Walker was vice chair of the Board of Curators when it named Gary Forsee president of the U. of Missouri system, in 2007. Today she is a co-chair of the committee searching for a leader to replace Timothy Wolfe, who resigned in November after protests on the flagship campus.
The Leadership Dilemma
At the U. of Missouri, Searching for President Everything
By Eric Kelderman
After protests rocked its flagship campus, the system is seeking an executive who possesses a broad range of qualifications. The question, one faculty leader asked, “is whether any human alive can meet all of them.”
Danielle Walker, a graduate student in public policy, has helped lead the "Racism Lives Here" movement on the Missouri campus. As an undergraduate diversity peer educator there, she says, she found that white classmates often prefer to see racism as only a series of isolated incidents.
Race on Campus
What It’s Like to Be Black at the U. of Missouri
By Beth McMurtrie
Students on the flagship campus say they are used to feeling invisible at times, singled out at others. They are hardly alone.
Ayanna Poole, a member of the group Concerned Student 1950, leads a march on the U. of Missouri’s flagship campus last fall. Emails among university leaders, obtained by The Chronicle, show how administrators struggled to deal with demands from protesters, calm student fears, and assess a barrage of violent threats.
Confronting a Crisis
Inside How Missouri’s Leadership Scrambled to Quell a Campus Crisis
By Jack Stripling
As protests over race grew at the University of Missouri in November, internal emails show a shaken administration trying to appease demonstrators, calm student fears, and assess a barrage of violent threats.
Kevin McDonald, just hired from the Rochester Institute of Technology as the U. of Missouri system’s first chief diversity officer: "Moving forward with diversity and inclusion isn’t something where you sit high and direct low."
Leadership
Students Should Feel Like ‘Equal Partners,’ Says Missouri’s First Chief Diversity Officer
By Sarah Brown
Kevin G. McDonald, who was hired on Wednesday, says he will bring an aptitude for building consensus and resolving conflict to the challenges that the university system faces.
Admissions
There’s More Than Protests to Blame for Mizzou’s Enrollment Woes
By Eric Kelderman
University officials expected the numbers to fall for a variety of reasons. But with the threat of big budget cuts, they’re scrambling to convince prospective students that the campus is a safe and welcoming space.
Kellan H. Marvin, a journalism and sociology student at the U. of Missouri at Columbia, is one of three student directors of a documentary about the advocacy group Concerned Student 1950.
Turmoil at Mizzou
‘We Got to Capture What You Didn’t Get to See’: Filming Concerned Student 1950
By Rio Fernandes
A team of students got access to the Missouri protest group before it made national news. Their documentary premiered on Saturday, with Spike Lee in the audience.
Melissa Click, an assistant professor of communication, was caught on camera in November trying to prevent a student journalist from covering a protest.
News
Melissa Click, U. of Missouri Professor Who Riled Free-Speech Advocates, Is Fired
By Steve Kolowich
The assistant professor of communication, who was caught on camera in November trying to prevent a student journalist from covering a protest, had been vilified by state lawmakers.
The student journalist Tim Tai is shown in a frame from a widely viewed video of a confrontation on the quad of the U. of Missouri at Columbia last fall. Melissa A. Click, the assistant professor of communication who was fired on Wednesday, was among those who tried to keep Mr. Tai away.
Faculty
10 Revealing Details in the Melissa Click Investigation
By Steve Kolowich, Brock Read, Andy Thomason
A report commissioned by the university’s board sheds light on what happened before and after the professor’s infamous confrontation at a protest on the flagship’s quad.
The Concerned Student 1950 campsite on Missouri’s Carnahan Quad in November. The university’s Board of Curators fired Melissa Click on Wednesday night for her actions during last fall’s protest.
Faculty
‘She Doesn’t Deserve It’: Student Activists and Faculty Members Object to Click’s Firing
By Katherine Mangan
One activist said the dismissal sent a message about what happens to those who aid black students who protest racism. Others, meanwhile, said the professor had acted despicably and needed to go.
Man Up on racism
Campus Voices
‘Man Up’ on Racism
By Julia Schmalz
Black students at Missouri talk about racial divides and how to fix a broken campus.
Black students who protested racism at the U. of Missouri at Columbia won a victory when two top administrators resigned. But symbolic gains are not the same as systemic ones, experts say: Changing a racial climate is a long-term struggle.
Campus Unrest
When Pursuing Diversity, Victory Is Hard to Define
By Dan Berrett, Eric Hoover
Across the country, students are demanding that colleges become more inclusive of minorities. But changing a racial climate is a long-term struggle.
The student protesters' encampment on the U. of Missouri at Columbia's main quad. Now that the activists have won an unexpected victory with the resignation of two top officials, the question is how the university will tackle the issues at the root of the protests.
Students
After Missouri’s Leadership Exodus, Hard Questions Loom on Race, Power, and Culture
By Katherine Mangan
The resignations of the system’s and the flagship’s top two officials represented a victory for student activists. But how will the university tackle the issues at the root of the protests?
The resignation of R. Bowen Loftin as chancellor of the U. of Missouri’s flagship campus, in Columbia, followed weeks of efforts by nine deans to force out a leader in whom they had lost confidence.
Leadership
How Missouri’s Deans Plotted to Get Rid of Their Chancellor
By Jack Stripling
R. Bowen Loftin’s resignation as chief of the flagship campus at Columbia has been cast as fallout from racial discord there. That’s not even the half of it.
Melissa Click, ordering a student journalist to leave a protest on the U. of Missouri campus quad on November 9. By that evening, her email inbox was overflowing.
Academic Freedom
Melissa Click’s Inbox
By Steve Kolowich
The 12 kinds of email a professor got after she became a national spectacle.
Michael A. Middleton, interim president of the U. of Missouri system: "My plan is to try to restore some trust and order and confidence in the university."
After the Protests
Confronting a Racial Divide, Missouri’s Interim President Finds Anger and Finger-Pointing
By Jack Stripling
Nearly three months after the University of Missouri’s top two officials resigned amid student protests, Michael Middleton leads an institution still wrestling with its path forward.
Michael A. Middleton, Interim President, U. of Missouri System -Image
On Leadership
Video: Restoring Stability to an Institution Rocked by Protests
By Sarah Brown
The University of Missouri has never effectively dealt with the “serious scars” of systemic racism and discrimination against African-Americans, says Michael Middleton, its interim president, and he hopes to help grapple with those issues.
What Mizzou Taught Me 1
The Chronicle Review
What Mizzou Taught Me
By Marcia Chatelain
I survived most of the racism. But for some of the kids who had been supported by black communities, the University of Missouri started as a dream school and wound up being a waking nightmare.
Commentary
Missouri Athletes Invoked the Moral Authority of Martin Luther King Jr.
By Ellen J. Staurowsky
“We are ... tied in a single garment of destiny,” the civil-rights leader wrote. The Tigers’ football players have taken up his mantle.