University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe resigns amid racial tensions

University of Missouri president Tim Wolfe announced his resignation Monday morning, a week after a graduate student began a hunger strike demanding he step down, and two days after black players on the football team, backed by their coaches and teammates, said they would not play until Wolfe left.

Wolfe said Monday that his resignation is effective immediately. The announcement came at a special meeting of the university system’s governing body, the Board of Curators.

The complaints came to a head over the weekend when at least 30 black football players announced they would not participate in team activities until Wolfe was removed or stepped down.

For months, black student groups have complained of racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white flagship campus of the state’s four-college system. Frustrations flared during a homecoming parade October 10 when black protesters blocked Wolfe’s car, and he did not get out and talk to them. They were removed by police.

Black members of the football team joined the outcry on Saturday night. By Sunday, a campus sit-in had grown in size, graduate student groups planned walkouts and politicians began to weigh in.

Copyright 2015 The Associated Press