Why Do Campus-Wide Protests?

In reaction to a pattern of on-campus racist incidents, the campus-wide protests at the University of Missouri at Columbia sparked a nationwide protest throughout many college campuses about the practice of Institutional Racism. As a result of these protests, several leaders of universities and professors have resigned while many universities have tried to address the demands of protesters ranging from firing controversial staff and leadership, hiring new diverse faculty and administration, renaming campus buildings, divesting from institutions that are inherently racist such as prisons and reinvesting money into communities (Black Liberation Collective). As higher education institutions respond, they should take students ' and organizations ' demands seriously and create and implement plans of actions to address them since these demands are built on racial oppressions that minorities sense.

Context at the University of Missouri:

Missouri has been the focal point of racially inspired protests

In a Mother Jones interview with MIT historian and professor Craig Steven Wilder he stated that it 's "difficult and awkward to celebrate diversity while standing in front of buildings that are named after slave traders". He adds that predominantly white universities have been successful in avoiding conversations about their intertwined history with slavery by distracting people with celebrations of diversity. In the same token, most of these claims are made in mind for marketing rather than managing and sustaining a diverse community. Institutional buildings are where students go to every day. Such names may cause a slight feeling of distancing in the hearts of the minorities that belong to people who faced oppression by these quite popular