Mizzou Prof: Firing University President Isn’t Going To Be Enough

RUSH TRANSCRIPT:

COSTELLO: "So students are very angry at the president of the university. They say he is ignoring their concerns. Can you address that?"

MONNIER: "I think if you seen the unfortunate statement that was caught on video on Friday where he answered the question, how would you define systematic oppression as it is your belief that you do not have equal opportunity at our institution. I think that gives -- that kind of captures nicely the inadequacy of his responses. To be fair, the system president usually has relatively little to do with the individual campuses. He oversees the four campuses and so usually the system president doesn't have such a public face on campus. That certainly is not what's happening now.

COSTELLO: "The professors, like yourself, are threatening to walk out of class. You say it may be an historic day. What do you mean by that?”

MONNIER: "There are a number of things going on right now. I think we are all holding our breath to see what happens at the board of curators meeting today. They have called their third kind of public/private meeting in about -- it's been about a six-week span. There's expectation that we're going to hear something about the status of system president and perhaps even about our own -- campus chancellor. I think what comes out of that meeting is going to affect what happens immediately on campus, though. I don't think the simple firing of our president is going to slow down the movement on campus but it will certainly affect where it goes next.”