What do you have to do to get fired from a liberal university? What about being a communications teacher who wants to use force to remove a student journalist from a public protest?
According to USA Today, University of Missouri assistant professor of communication Melissa Click is still employed by Mizzou despite the fact that she asked students for some “muscle” to push out student journalist documenting a protest on public property.
On Tuesday, more than 100 Missouri Republican elected officials called on the university to fire Click for her abhorrent behavior.
“(Click) failed to meet the obligations she has to her supervisors, fellow professors, University students, and the taxpayers of Missouri,” the lawmakers said in a letter to the University of Missouri System and its flagship campus in Columbia.
“The fact that, as a professor teaching in the communication department and school of journalism, she displayed such a complete disregard for the First Amendment rights of reporters should be enough to question her competency and aptitude for her job,” the letter continued. “It should be evident that these actions are inappropriate, illegal and unacceptable for a faculty member of the University of Missouri.”
Lawmakers also demanded that Janna Basler, the university’s assistant director of Greek Life, also be fired for appearing on the same video as Click grabbing a student journalists’ camera and demanding he be removed from the protest.
Click’s colleagues responded with a letter of support for the assistant professor claiming that she had been wronged by the media.
Currently the assistant professor has several projects involving, “50 Shades of Grey readers, the impact of social media in fans’ relationship with Lady Gaga, masculinity and male fans, messages about class and food in reality television programming, and messages about work in children’s television programs.”
With that kind of background she’s clearly indispensable to the institution of higher learning.
Watch the clip of the protest below:
