Missouri President Resigns Amid Protests

Jonathan Butler can eat again. Butler is the University of Missouri student who went on a hunger strike to demand the resignation of president Tim Wolfe over a series of racial incidents at the university system's flagship campus in Columbia. Wolfe obliged Monday morning as protests continued to swell, and his resignation is effective immediately, reports the AP. "I take full responsibility for this frustration and I take full responsibility for the inaction that has occurred," Wolfe said, per NPR. Resigning is the "right thing to do," he added. "It is my belief we stopped listening to each other. This is not the way that change should come about."

The protest movement got a big boost over the weekend when more than 30 black football players said they would boycott team activities until Wolfe resigned, and their coach backed them up. Critics say Wolfe essentially ignored their pleas for action after several incidents, including one in which someone smeared feces on the wall of a dorm in the shape of a swastika. Things got especially bad when Wolfe refused to address protesters at the school's homecoming parade, notes the Columbia Daily Tribune. Wolfe apologized for the slight on Friday, but it wasn't enough to save his job. (More University of Missouri stories.)