Two recent situations were handled as differently as night and day. On Monday, University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe was forced to resign over allegations that the administration had been unresponsive to racism on campus. Things had come to a head; there were massive sit-ins and protests, a hunger strike, and at least 30 Black Mizzou football players had threatened not to participate in any more football activities unless the situation was dealt with.
The problem is that the administration had let these incidents go on for too long. Racism and bullying are not a matter of boys being boys. Had the situation been allowed to escalate further, someone could have been killed. These behaviors should have no place in any sort of public gathering. We have a theory that the reason the Mizzou basketball team has struggled the last two years and the football team has struggled this year, in part, was due to the environment that was created, making it difficult for the coaches to recruit good players. Creating safe campuses for kids from all walks of life is a must in this day and age. Failure to do so is a dealbreaker for many people.
We here in rural Missouri need to avoid anything which might be perceived as racist; there are plenty of parents out there who won't move to a certain community if they perceive it as racist b/c they don't want their children exposed to that. The board needs to hire a President who has had experience in an academic setting who knows how to deal with a diverse student population. As the Bible says, God is no respecter of persons, and His saved will come from every tribe, tongue, and nation.
By contrast, the North Nodaway administration acted promptly when a student brought a gun to school two weeks ago. They realized that in this day and age, there is no place for making threats of violence against people, even in jest. They took quick action to protect the students and teachers, and everyone is safe as a result. The individual who reported the incident did the right thing -- the only way we can prevent violence in schools is for people in a position to do so to discuss their concerns with someone they trust whenever they think someone might engage in actions that put themselves or others at risk.
We do not know what precipitated that particular incident or who instigated the conflict that led that particular student to act the way he did. There are always two sides to any story. But what we do know is that our schools can and should use this as an opportunity to create an environment in which bullying and racism are not tolerated and conflicts can be resolved before they progress to the point where one party or the other feels the need to resort to violence.
For this to happen, all students have to be valued for who they are. Schools cannot create environments in which, say, the athletes are the most important thing and all the rest of the students are second class citizens. People here in small towns tend to be skeptical of outsiders, but students need to be treated with respect whether they have just moved in or whether their families have been lifers in the community since its founding shortly after the Civil War. Right now, our small towns are in a state of economic decline that has been in progress for the last several decades. The only way that will be reversed as for us, as communities, to treat everyone with respect regardless of who they are. When that happens, people will want to move in and be a part of a place which creates a welcoming environment which creates a safe place for all of us to live in and work.
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