University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe is stepping down. Wolf's decision follows a special meeting of the system's governing board Monday. Wolfe says he hopes the school community uses his resignation as a way to ``move forward together.''
Wolfe said he took full responsibility for the frustration' students had expressed regarding racial issues and that it ``is clear'' and ``real.'' Black student groups have been complaining for months about racial slurs and other slights on the University of Missouri's overwhelmingly white flagship campus in Columbia. Their efforts got a boost over the weekend when 30 black football players announced they wouldn't participate in team activities until Wolfe was removed. In a related story, a University of Missouri graduate student says he will end his hunger strike now that the university system's president has resigned. Jonathan Butler, who started his hunger strike Nov. 2, told CNN that he welcomes President Wolfe's resignation announcement but that the university still has a long way to go to make minority students feel welcome. Butler says the university system's governing board needs to listen to more minority faculty and student voices so that situations like this don't happen again.
