Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (R) during an appearance on Fox News on Friday criticized the protests that rocked the state’s flagship university in Columbia and led to the resignation of University of Missouri President Timothy Wolfe and news that Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin will resign at the end of the year.
The second-in-command said he regretted having posted what he described as “a conciliatory and welcoming tweet” about the appointment of the Michael Middleton as the interim university president. Kinder said he was upset after hearing the former federal civil rights attorney’s recent comments on rampant campus racism and microaggressions.
“I’ve known Dr. Middleton for I guess over 15 years. I wished him well. I think he’s wrong,” Kinder told the anchors of Fox’s “America’s Newsroom.”
Kinder cited numerous black leaders on campus, including former university President Elson Floyd, football player Michael Sam, and Mizzou student body president and homecoming king Payton Head.
Kinder elaborated: “Now I don’t think that is the profile of a campus that is in the grip of systemic racism.”
He also offered proof of a lack of racism on campus because Jonathan Butler, the black graduate student who went on a hunger strike, came “from a wealthy family that could have sent him to any school on the planet” but still he went to Mizzou.
The White House even took the side of the protestors, Kinder said, “no matter how flimsy the basis is.”
Missourians must stand up for themselves, Kinder said.
“I also believe, that it’s time, and I say this more in sorrow than in anger, that it’s time for the good people of Missouri to have someone speak up for them and speak up for our great university,” Kinder said. “It’s time for somebody to lay some facts on the table, and say, we are not racist.”
“Missourians are tired of this,” he said.
Watch a clip of the interview below:
