Black Studies Director at University of Missouri-Kansas City Leaves His Post in Frustration Over Administrative Inaction on Racial Diversity

Don Matthews, director of the African-American studies program at the University of Missouri in Kansas City, abruptly resigned his position at the beginning of the academic year in frustration over the administration’s efforts to increase racial diversity on campus.

After five years of teaching at the university, Matthews said his complaints about the small number of new black faculty on campus, the administration’s failure to promote existing black faculty, and a climate on campus that was not friendly to blacks, went unheeded. “I left because I felt that it had become a personal issue between me and the university,” Matthews told The Kansas City Star. “I was seen as the whistle blower and it was hurting the African-American studies program.”

Blacks are about 12.5 percent of the 9,500-member undergraduate student body at the university.

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