Missouri names diversity leader; social media aids protest

COLUMBIA, Mo. – The campus coup d’etat is over. The University of Missouri has named its first interim vice chancellor for inclusion, diversity and equity.

Provost Garnett Stokes said Tuesday that Chuck Henson will fill the role. Henson is associate dean for academic affairs and trial practice at the university’s School of Law. His appointment comes a day after the president of the four-campus university system and the chancellor at its flagship in Columbia announced their resignations amid anger from students, professors and state lawmakers over their handling of racial and other issues.

The university has said it also plans to review policies related to staff and student conduct and to provide more support to those experiencing discrimination. In response to student demands, it has pledged to work toward employing a more diverse faculty and staff.

After Monday’s resignations, hundreds of students at an outdoor amphitheater chanted, “I ... am ... a … revolutionary!” Social media users around the world joined in, tweeting more than 100,000 times about the day’s protest.

The uprising was partly a ripple effect from last year’s protests in Ferguson, Mo. Once again, students paired bold physical protests with a social media megaphone to demand a renewed focus on racial inequality. Reuben Faloughi, a third-year doctoral student, said Monday that his experience with activism after Brown’s shooting death by a police officer “planted the seeds that students can challenge things.”

“The frustration and anger that I see is clear, real, and I don’t doubt it for a second,” said university President Tim Wolfe as he resigned Monday.

Student activism is nothing new, and not even something uncommon this semester: Similar protests over racist incidents took place at Yale University and a high school in Berkeley in recent weeks. University of California President Janet Napolitano said that college campuses have “historically been places where social issues in the United States are raised and where many voices are heard.”

But the rise of social media had made a major difference, she said, between activism on today’s campuses and those during the Vietnam War and civil rights era of protest. “It makes the pace of things more rapid now,” she said.