In the midst of this unprecedented time of a global health, economic, and societal crisis, the University of Missouri (UM) System, led by President Mun Y. Choi and the Board of Curators, has an obligation to provide relief, especially to students, faculty, and staff who are low-income, disabled, LGBTQ+, Black, Indigenous, and other people of color (BIPOC), and more. Recent actions and policies put in place by the leaders of the UM System have demonstrated a blatant disregard for our health and safety. We as stakeholders in the UM System, primarily students and staff, demand to be treated fairly by our administration during this unprecedented time.

 

President Choi and the UM Board of Curators have repeatedly disparaged and blamed students for the spread of COVID-19, particularly in Columbia, ranked one of the nation’s hotspots for cases per capita by the New York Times, while they have continually failed to provide basic protections like easily accessible diagnostic testing, surveillance testing, and accessible quarantine/isolation housing, all urgently recommended to leaders of the state of Missouri by the White House Coronavirus Task Force, due to the state’s status in the ‘red zone’ for dangerous, uncontrolled spread of this disease.

 

Vice Chancellor of Student Affairs Bill Stackman was recently quoted by The Maneater disparaging the important goals Concerned Student 1950 fought for in 2015 in talking points provided by President Choi,reducing their importance down to their effect on enrollment numbers. This presented Mizzou’s enrollment decline as a result of Black students’ advocacy for their educational rights, rather than the university’s prior and ongoing failure to address anti-Black racism on its campus. Vice Chancellor Stackman was also recently quoted in the same article attempting, at President Choi’s direction, to suppress any type of disagreement or dissent with administrative decisions among staff and graduate assistants. Weeks later, one of your members, UM Curator David L. Steelman, joked openly online about rising COVID-19 infections among Mizzou students, faculty, and staff. A little over a week after his comments, 793 members of the Mizzou community had been identified as infected with COVID-19 despite limited testing, placing Mizzou among the top COVID-19 outbreaks on a US university campus. These decisions and statements reaffirm how little you, President Choi and members of the UM Board of Curators, and your top administrators seem to care for student, faculty, and staff well-being, or the health of surrounding communities, when your profits are involved.  

 

        The motto of the state of Missouri and UM System is Salus populi suprema lex esto, or “The health of the people shall be the supreme law.” It is clear that you, President Choi and members of the Board of Curators, have taken an ineffective and cavalier approach to handling the pandemic, and thus you are not prioritizing the health of the people. As a coalition including students, staff, faculty, and other stakeholders across the UM System, we demand that our safety and well-being be prioritized by you and the administrations across all four campuses—Mizzou, UMKC, Missouri S&T, and UMSL. If effective action is not taken, we believe you should be held accountable for your neglect of student, faculty, and staff well-being and that of the four campuses’ surrounding communities.

 

             Until our demands and concerns are addressed by the UM System, we are calling for student action across all four UM campuses.

We Demand

- A tuition freeze and reduction in tuition for virtual classes for the fall semester

-Increased COVID-19 testing and transparency with case and testing data

-Expanded capacity and quality of isolation housing to extend to students without residential services contracts

-A pivot to fully online instruction

-Permission for students to remain in dorms in the event that classes move entirely online and a refund of the housing contracts of students who choose to return home

-Protection of the job security and benefits of all staff, faculty, and undergraduate and graduate student workers in cases of threatened revenue reductions

-Protection of academic and campus programs serving marginalized students and faculty and public reporting in cases of revenue reductions

-Permanent removal of the Thomas Jefferson statue from Mizzou’s campus

-Renaming of the Miller Nichols Library on UMKC’s campus

-Unmerging of the positions of Mizzou Chancellor and UM System President

-Removal of Mun Y. Choi from leadership positions within the UM System

-Protection of the rights of staff, faculty, and student employees to speak critically about university policies and activities

Signed,

 

Missouri Coalition for COVID Safety

@MO4CovidSafety

 

Undersigned by the following organizations and groups across Missouri​

To read the complete letter of demands and other resources