University of Missouri system president Tim Wolfe announced his resignation at a university board of curators meeting Monday morning.
Many things are yet to be determined. One thing is certain. The University of Missouri football boycott will have serious, national ramifications for public institutions and state governments. The football team’s protest has already brought down University president Tim Wolfe. Like the result of any football game, this collision between the will of a football program and the will of a university administration came down to more than one play where a linebacker meets a running back at the goal line. Since Ferguson Missouri has emerged as ground zero for a debate on systematic racism. Some might argue that the state has been a litmus test for race relations in America’s heartland since the Missouri Compromise. It doesn’t matter anymore. However Missouri has gotten to this point its largest institution for higher learning was forced into action by its football program.
There are thousands of hot takes on the Missouri boycott, and thousands more to come. Many Americans wanted to dismiss the Ferguson protests as opportunist agitation; and many want to reduce the current situation in Columbia as a whiny, liberal student protest. The Missouri football players have dismantled the previous narratives. The state is being forced to address systematic racism, and the president of their largest public university has resigned.
In 2011 Ohio State suspended its football coach, Jim Tressell, for the first two games of the season amidst a burgeoning scandal. The university president at the time, Gordon Gee, was asked if he considered firing Tressell. Gee responded: “No, are you kidding me? I’m just hopeful that the coach doesn’t dismiss me.”
Gee got a chuckle out of his remark, but not everyone was so amused. Gee had scratched an undeniable scab irritating the upper echelons of higher education.
“As asinine as that comment was, it’s not as stupid as it sounds,” said David Ridpath, an assistant professor of sport administration at Ohio University and a member of the Drake Group, a national network of college professors who lobby for academic integrity in college athletics. “It was dumb, a poor attempt at humor, but I think we all know what he’s really saying. Jim Tressel can have him out of office tomorrow but it would be tougher to get Jim Tressel fired.”
Gordon Gee went on to prove himself as the arrogant and ignorant stereotype of a university executive. But his comment begged a serious question. Should a football program have an influence on university policy? If universities put their mouths where their money is then maybe football should influence more than the bottom line.
Missouri coach Gary Pinkel might have fired Tim Wolfe with this single tweet:
The Mizzou Family stands as one. We are united. We are behind our players. #ConcernedStudent1950 GP pic.twitter.com/fMHbPPTTKl
— Coach Gary Pinkel (@GaryPinkel) November 8, 2015
In 2013 Deadspin published a graphic listing the vocations of America’s top paid public employees. The ranks of the highest-paid active public employees, at the time, included 27 football coaches.
The Missouri football program generated over $35 million dollars in revenue for 2014. Missouri was one of only 20 Football Bowl Subdivision athletic departments with greater revenues than expenses during 2013, according to the NCAA. That doesn’t include the economic impact on Columbia. As The Nation’s Dave Zirin points out there is a lot at stake:
There isn’t the weekly economic boon to Columbia, Missouri, bringing in millions in revenue to hotels, restaurants, and other assorted businesses without black labor. The power brokers of Columbia need these games to be played. Yet if the young black men and those willing to stand with them—and there are white teammates publicly standing with them—aren’t happy with the grind of unpaid labor on a campus openly hostile to black students, they can take it all down, just by putting down their helmets, hanging up their spikes, and folding their arms.
There is precedent for student protests leading to the removal of university presidents. In 1988 student protests at Gallaudet University, the nation’s only institution of higher learning for the deaf, forced the resignation of president Elisabeth Ann Zinser. Now that the Missouri football program has made its mark on higher education what will follow? Will Missouri take enough action to appease student requests for a thorough reexamination of racial policy? Concerned Student 1950, the student activism group leading the protests, is named for the year Missouri first admitted African-American students. Their list of demands goes far beyond the removal of Tim Wolfe. One demand calls for specific hiring practices:
We demand that by the academic year 2017-2018, the University of Missouri increases the percentage of black faculty and staff campuswide to 10%.
Governor Jay Nixon has weighed in with a statement:
“Racism and intolerance have no place at the University of Missouri or anywhere in our state,” Gov. Nixon said. “Our colleges and universities must be havens of trust and understanding. These concerns must be addressed to ensure the University of Missouri is a place where all students can pursue their dreams in an environment of respect, tolerance and inclusion.”
Senator Claire McCaskill issued a statement:
“At this point I think it is essential that the University of Missouri Board of Curators send a clear message to the students at Mizzou that there is an unqualified commitment to address racism on campus. As a graduate who cares deeply about Mizzou, I’m confident that my university can and will do better in supporting an environment of tolerance and inclusion.”
Will Governor Nixon and Senator McCaskill take more action? Many people hope the resignation of Wolfe will be the end of an uprising, but chances are that it is only the beginning. Larger questions swirl around Missouri, and it will be interesting to see how the same people who dismissed Ferguson and the student protests will tie themselves in knots explaining the success of the football boycott. In one day a football program forced the hand of an entire state government. What effect will this have on racial protest across the country? And how will university administrations proceed when faced with the inevitable self-consciousness of football programs exerting real power? The Missouri football team just moved the goalposts.
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