Mizzou Communications Professor Resigns From Appointment After Threatening

As a graduate of the University of Missouri School of Journalism – the first in the world (1908), and the finest, IMO – I am proud of the way Tim Tai conducted himself – and appalled at the way the communications (NOT journalism) professor and other students and protesters conducted themselves.

A video of University of Missouri protestors attempting to prohibit journalists from covering the demonstrations taking place on the campus’ quad went viral Monday night.

It shows protesters arguing with Tai and pushing him away after Tai tells them he has a right to document the event.

Click is a member of the communications department, which is separate from the journalism school, but she holds a “courtesy appointment” with the journalism school. He again states his right to be there, and Click responds by citing her credentials as a communications professor, but does so while mocking Schierbecker using what seems to be a voice imitating that of a person with disabilities.

Click apologized Tuesday afternoon through a statement issued by the school: “I have reviewed and reflected upon the video of me that is circulating, and have written this statement to offer both apology and context of my actions”.

The University of Missouri protest that brought down the school’s president may have claimed another faculty member-this one on the side of protesters. Click also told the faculty members, who were weighing whether to revoke her courtesy appointment with the journalism school, that she had received more than 2,000 threatening e-mails since Monday’s incident.

The First Amendment that protected their right to protest also protected his right to photograph that protest, he said.

“Hey who wants to help me get this reporter out of here”, Click said in the video. After a student activist launched a hunger strike and the school’s football team threatened to stop playing – a move which would have cost the school at least $1 million in forfeiture funds – unless the university’s top official quit, University of Missouri President Tim Wolfe announced his resignation Monday.

“I think people need to be sensitive to overt examples of racism, but there ought to be a climate where there’s tolerance and free speech”, Bush told reporters after a town hall here. “She wanted to explain what happened”. In a semi-sincere apology for which she would earn at best a “C”, she said, “I regret the language and strategies I used”.

Shortly after Tai arrived and began to take photos, the protesters formed a ring around the encampment and began to push away the assembled media. When Click’s supposed “muscle” arrives, three men calmly ask Schierbecker to leave while Click continues to shout and cover the camera with her hand.

She said she spoke to one of the reporters on the phone and he accepted her apology.

At Yale, before emails about Halloween became a national news story, Wilson was relieved to see an email from Yale’s Intercultural Affairs Commission encouraging students to avoid “culturally unaware or insensitive” costumes. “We applaud student journalists who were working in a very trying atmosphere to report a very significant story”, it said.