Concerned Student Nineteen-Fifty, The Two Thousand Fifteen Protests

In the fall of two thousand fifteen, a series of racial incidents on the University of Missouri campus, including a student body president reporting that slurs had been shouted at him from a passing truck, and swastikas drawn in feces in a campus dormitory, produced a student movement that ultimately brought down the leadership of the university system. The group called itself Concerned Student Nineteen-Fifty. The year in the name was significant: nineteen fifty was the year the first Black students were admitted to the University of Missouri after decades of legally enforced segregation.

The group demanded action on what it described as a pattern of institutional indifference to racism on campus. Jonathan Butler, a graduate student, began a hunger strike on November second, pledging to refuse food until University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe resigned. Several days later, the Missouri Tigers football team announced it would not practice or play until Wolfe stepped down.

The team's coaches supported the players' decision. The potential financial loss to the university from a forfeited game, estimated at more than one million dollars in contractual penalties alone, accelerated events. On November ninth, two thousand fifteen, Tim Wolfe resigned.

Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin announced he would step down at the end of the year. Butler ended his hunger strike.

The football team returned to practice. The events in Columbia drew national attention and sparked debates at campuses across the country about university leadership, racial climate, and the unexpected power of athletes refusing to play. The story unfolded within walking distance of the columns that have anchored the university's campus since eighteen ninety-two.