photo from Twitter HeMadeAKing @1Sherrils_2MIZZ
Black football players at the University of Missouri will not participate in any practices or games until University of Missouri System president Tim Wolfe resigns or is terminated.
Missouri’s Legion of Black Collegians posted a statement on behalf of the team with a picture of players unified in support of the boycott.
The boycott is a response to Wolfe’s handling of a series of racist incidents that have happened on the Columbia campus. Graduate student, Jonathan Butler, announced earlier this week he was going on a hunger strike until Wolfe was removed.
Late Saturday night the Mizzou athletic department released two tweet around 10 p.m.
“The department of athletics is aware of the declarations made tonight by many our student-athletes. We must come together with leaders from across our campus to tackles these challenging issues and we support our athletes right to do so.”
Butler’s decision came three weeks after Concerned Student 1950 stopped Wolfe’s car during the Homecoming Parade and a week after the group met privately with Wolfe. Concerned Student 1950 is a student activism group spearheading the protests. It’s named after the year black students were first admitted to Missouri.
Some of Butler’s concerns come from “a slew of racist, sexist, homophobic, etc., incidents that have dynamically disrupted the learning experience” at MU. Butler as also referenced incidents of black students being called racist slurs, the sudden removal of graduate student health insurance subsidies in August, MU’s cancellation of Planned Parenthood contracts and the swastika drawn with human feces found in an MU residence hall on Oct. 24.
60 of the 124 players listed on the Missouri football roster are black. The team plays Saturday against Brigham Young at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City.
Read more from the Columbian Missouri on how the football players became involved.