A decade after antiracism protests swept the University of Missouri’s campus in 2015, a new data analysis from the Missouri News Network finds the school’s Black student population has declined at a steeper rate than ethnic groups.
Overall enrollment at MU fell about 10% from 2013-2023, according to data collected from the National Center for Education Statistics. In that same time period, Black student enrollment declined almost 34%.
By comparison, Black student populations at other regional public universities of similar sizes — in Arkansas, Georgia, Illinois, Iowa, Michigan, Kansas, Nebraska, Ohio and Wisconsin — went up. Ohio State saw the highest increase in Black enrollment: 42% from 2013-2023. The University of Arkansas, which shares a spot in the Southeastern Conference with MU, saw a more than 3% increase over the same period.
For both current and former Black and African-American students who describe a history and culture of racism, the numbers are unsurprising — and are evidence validating their own experiences on campus.
Before 2015
JL Adolph started his master’s degree in English and African diaspora studies at MU in 2007.
In an era before Black Lives Matter, Adolph said racism was sometimes seemingly obvious on campus — such as in 2010, when two students spread cotton balls outside of the Gaines/Oldham Black Culture Center. Their charges were later dropped from a felony hate crime to misdemeanor littering.
“That was one of the more shocking, in-your-face sort of issues with race,” Adolph said. “But it was also micro-levels of aggression as well.”
Adolph said he felt African-American scholarship was less important to his professors in the English department who believed British and American literature was more “universal.” At one point, Adolph recalled paying for a visiting Black poet’s hotel stay out of his own pocket and answering to leadership who thought what she had to say was too radical.
“Mizzou made it painfully clear that certain forms of literature, certain majors, certain students were just not valued as much as other students,” Adolph said.
Though he remembers MU fondly, Adolph said he doesn’t credit the university or English department for what he learned — instead, he is thankful for the places he felt seen, including the Counseling Center, the historically African American fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha and the Gaines Oldham Black Culture Center.
“You can have a nice meal at a restaurant, but do you want to have a nice meal or do you want to have an experience?” Adolph said. “Mizzou is a nice meal [but] I think they need to work on having a great experience.”
2015 and beyond
Adolph was pursuing a PhD when anti-racism protests swept MU’s campus in 2015, made national headlines and ultimately forced a change in university leadership.
“By the time the hunger strike and all of that took place, I want to say — and this is kind of sad — I started developing a sort of racial callus,” Adolph said. “I just came to think that this is Mizzou, what do you expect?”
The student group Concerned Student 1950 — a name reflective of the first year an African American student was allowed to enroll at MU — led the calls for change in 2015. Among its list of demands was that MU “increase retention rates for marginalized students, sustain diversity curriculum and training and promote a more safe and inclusive campus.”
But Black student enrollment saw its sharpest declines in 2016 and 2017, with more than 450 less students enrolled compared to 2015 — some graduated, while others may have left or chosen not to enroll.
“A few years removed from that, there's still a lot of things going on — a lot of friction, frustration,” said one student who asked not to have their name used to protect against retaliation at their current university.
They came to MU in 2018 and described a “thriving” Black and brown community, thanks in part to the somewhat-Southern culture of an SEC school.
“I grew so much in my own identity, my own familiarity with my Black culture and Latino culture, that I would have never had if it wasn't for Mizzou,” they recalled. “But we [weren’t] seeing the kind of changes that we want.”
The student said school leadership made efforts to meet requests for change, but the results felt performative: like the construction of a DEI corner in one of the campus buildings — something students didn’t ask for.
After George Floyd and Breonna Taylor’s killings by police in 2020, the student said they and others went to the university for support.
“We were just asking for people to acknowledge what was going on, and to try to just support,” they said. “But they would never really talk about what was going on.”
The student was also a recipient of a diversity scholarship that allowed them and other students of color to have community.
“Finding that kind of cohort when you first come into college, in like a university environment, is so difficult,” they said. “That kind of community is super, super encouraging, and the network that’s created from that — I think it's super valuable.”
But their scholarship, and all other race-based ones, were dismantled by the university beginning in fall 2024.
MU declined an interview for this story, but spokesman Christopher Ave wrote in an email that, “race-based scholarships were eliminated because it became unlawful to continue them” after the 2023 Supreme Court decision to strike down affirmative action and a subsequent directive from the Missouri Attorney General’s office.
“Mizzou is definitely losing out on being able to keep a lot of talent, a lot of high achieving students because of that,” the student said. “And also, they’re definitely not attracting any.”
Mizzou now
Self-reported data on MU’s website suggests Black student enrollment has fallen another 2% since 2023.
In addition to cancelling race-based scholarships, MU also closed its Office of Inclusion, Equity and Diversity in 2024, before being legally mandated to do so, to focus on “the success of all members of the Mizzou community no matter their background,” according to Ave.
In an interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education earlier this year, university president Mun Choi said the decline in enrolled Black students has slowed but MU could no longer legally work toward increasing Black enrollment.
“The University of Mizzou that I entered my freshman year is not the same University of Mizzou other Black students are entering this year and their freshman year,” said MU senior Desmond Jones.
When he came to MU, Jones said he found community thanks to the Legion of Black Collegians’ annual welcome back event. This year, Choi canceled it over the event’s name, the “Black 2 Class Block Party,” which university administration said promoted “exclusivity.” And in 2024, Choi forced the “Welcome Black Barbecue” to be renamed the “Welcome Black and Gold Barbecue.”
Jones also found value in the Mizzou Black Men’s Initiative, a class for freshmen about the collegiate experience. It, too, is now defunct — as is the parallel program for Black women.
Because of MU’s decisions to dismantle programs that supported diversity, Jones said he wouldn’t recommend that other Black students enroll.
“Hell would have to be cold before I allowed them to do that because I understand that there's so few safe spaces on campus, and even the ones that we do have are consistently being disappeared,” Jones said.
In order for Jones to change his mind, the university would have to make a concerted effort to welcome students of color to campus, he said.
“It doesn't really sound like you want me to be here,” Jones said. “You have to tell people and show them that, ‘We desire you being here, we’re seeking you out intentionally and then giving you spaces to go.’”
The effect on others
Jones said MU could do a better job of protecting faculty and administrators who stand up for Black students. He, the student from 2018 and Adolph all described receiving mentorship from Black faculty — even ones they didn’t take classes from.
But students on campus today won’t find many Black professors. From 2013-2023, MU’s professoriate grew by 10%. In that same time period, the number of Black professors only went up about 1%.
MU’s own data notes that in the fall of 2025, there were just 85 Black faculty out of more than 2,200.
Special education assistant professor Aaron Campbell said students outside of her classes seek her for help.
“It’s very telling that they would come looking for and seeking out someone who looks like them because they feel in trouble,” Campbell said.
Campbell said she tries to assist students as well as she can, despite her position as a junior faculty member, but has been disappointed with her college’s treatment of student issues.
“They have a different level of empathy for white students, and they don't exude empathy for Black students,” Campbell said.
Campbell said she’s made reports to the Office of Institutional Equity that were ineffective, and it’s made her question staying at MU.
In his statement to KBIA, Ave wrote, “The university does not tolerate discrimination or harassment on our campus. All reported cases are investigated, and individuals who violate our policies or the law are held accountable.”
For more on Campbell and other professors’ experiences at MU, look for the second part to this series, coming soon.
How we compiled the data
Missouri School of Journalism Data Desk students Mariia Novoselia, Muhammad Saurav Rahman and Anna Sago downloaded the most recent data on enrollment, degrees completed and faculty demographics by race from the National Center for Education Statistics’ IPEDS Data Center and pulled data for Mizzou and nine comparable universities.
Students in David Herzog’s introductory data journalism class then analyzed the data for changes since the 2015 campus racial protests. The student teams also produced interactive graphics with the Missouri News Network Infographics Desk.
Yazin Merayyan, Ralph Sternadori and Tyler White focused on enrollment.
Wei He and Jack Smith focused on degrees completed.
Madi Hankel and Jacob Miklas focused on full-time ranked faculty.
