Michael Middleton named interim president at Missouri
— -- COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The University of Missouri's governing board on Thursday appointed a recently retired senior administrator from its flagship campus to be the university system's interim president.
Michael Middleton, 68, takes over for Tim Wolfe, who resigned abruptly Monday amid student-led protests over his administration's handling of racial complaints.
"Mike Middleton is the best person to lead the system during this critical period of transition, with 30 years of leadership experience on the MU campus and past service as a civil rights attorney," said Donald Cupps, chairman of the University of Missouri board of curators. "Mike's outstanding managerial skills, and knowledge of the UM System and its four campuses, make him the leader we need to advance our university system forward."
Middleton, who is black, resigned as deputy chancellor of the Columbia campus in August and took on the role of deputy chancellor emeritus. He had been working part-time with the campus' chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, on a plan to increase inclusion and diversity at the school. Loftin also announced Monday that he would be stepping down at the end of the year for a different role at the school.
The resignations came after 30 black members of the football team gave a big boost to the protest movement by vowing not to take part in team activities until Wolfe was gone.
MU Policy Now, a student group made up of graduate and professional students, had been pushing for Middleton's appointment.
"Given the recent turmoil, Deputy Chancellor Emeritus Middleton is a strong transitional figure," the group wrote in a letter of endorsement posted on its Facebook page and sent to curators. Several student organizations signed the recommendation letter, including the Legion of Black Collegians.
Middleton has a bachelor's degree from Missouri and became one of the first black graduates of the law school in 1971. He worked with the federal government in Washington and was a trial attorney in the Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division before joining the university's law faculty in 1985.
He helped found the Legion of Black Collegians, a student group involved in the current protest, and participated in previous campus protests for civil rights and against the Vietnam War.
Middleton was interim vice provost for minority affairs and faculty development starting in 1997, and a year later he was named deputy chancellor. In that role, he was credited with turning the women's studies and black studies programs into their own departments.
"I am honored to accept the appointment as interim president of the UM System, and lead our state's premier university during this extraordinary time," Middleton said in a statement. "The time has come for us to acknowledge and address our daunting challenges, and return to our relentless adherence to the University of Missouri's mission to discover, disseminate, preserve and apply knowledge."
Meanwhile, a 19-year-old man accused of posting online threats to shoot black people on the Columbia campus was expected to appear in court via a video link from jail, where he is being held on bond.
Hunter M. Park, a sophomore at the Missouri System campus in Rolla, is charged with making a terroristic threat, which is punishable by up to seven years in prison.
The threatening posts showed up Tuesday on the anonymous, location-based messaging app Yik Yak and were concerning enough that some classes were canceled and some Columbia businesses closed for the day.
One of the threats said: "Some of you are alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow" -- a warning campus police Officer Dustin Heckmaster said in a probable cause statement that he recognized as one that appeared ahead of last month's Oregon college shooting involving a gunman who killed nine people and himself.
Heckmaster wrote that Yik Yak willingly gave him the cellphone number that Tuesday's poster had used to create the account from which the threats originated. AT&T later told investigators that the number was Park's and that cellphone towers showed that the postings came from the Rolla area, the officer wrote.
University of Missouri-Columbia police records show the department had contact with Park in January, Heckmaster wrote without elaborating. Those records noted that Park was a student at Missouri University of Science and Technology in Rolla, where Heckmaster confronted Park early Wednesday in the sophomore computer science major's dorm room.
Heckmaster wrote that Park admitted the posts were "inappropriate." He said he asked if the threats amounted to "saber rattling" and that Park responded, "pretty much."
Questioned specifically what he meant by the phrase: "Some of you are alright. Don't go to campus tomorrow," Park "smiled and stated, 'I was quoting something,'" Heckmaster wrote. Pressed whether it was mimicking the Oregon shooting's posting, Park replied, "Mmhmm."
Asked why, Park said: "I don't know. I just ... deep interest," Heckmaster wrote.
A message left on Park's mother's cellphone was not returned, and there was no response to knocks on the door of the family's home in the affluent St. Louis suburb of Lake St. Louis.
A second student was arrested at Northwest Missouri State University in Maryville for allegedly posting a threat on Yik Yak that read, "I'm gonna shoot any black people tomorrow, so be ready." Northwest Missouri State spokesman Mark Hornickel told several media outlets that authorities hadn't linked the incident to threats at Missouri's Columbia campus.
Authorities also are investigating another threat on Yik Yak, this one leveled at the Rolla campus by someone saying, "I'm gonna shoot up this school." And police at the Columbia campus say someone spray-painted over part of a sign early Thursday at the black culture center. They were reviewing video surveillance from the area, a school spokesman said.
On Wednesday, the university said an employee who was among those who clashed with a student photographer during campus protests was placed on administrative leave while her actions are investigated.
Janna Basler is the school's director of Greek life. The videotaped clash helped fan a debate about the free press. Basler did not return a message seeking comment.
A communication professor also drew criticism for trying to stop a photographer from taking pictures. Melissa Click apologized Tuesday.
Months of protests culminated in a tumultuous week on the Columbia campus.
In September, the student government president reported that people shouted racial slurs at him from a passing pickup truck, galvanizing the protest movement. Last week, a graduate student went on a hunger strike to demand the resignation of Wolfe over his handling of racial complaints.
Then more than 30 members of the Missouri football team refused to practice or play in support of the hunger striker. Those developments came to a head Monday with the resignation of Wolfe and Loftin, the top administrator of the Columbia campus.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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