The University of Missouri professor who pushed and threatened a student reporter during a protest has been charged with 3rd degree assault, a Class C misdemeanor.
Melissa Click made national headlines in November when she was seen on video confronting a student journalist, grabbing his camera and requesting some “muscle” to get him to stop covering the protests. Click, ironically, had a courtesy appointment at the Missouri School of Journalism, which she resigned from following the incident.
Click issued an apology shortly after her behavior, saying her “actions were shaped by exasperation with a few spirited reporters. She also praised the reporter she had threatened, Tim Tai, and said she apologized to him personally over the phone.
“I regret the language and strategies I used, and sincerely apologize to the MU campus community, and journalists at large, for my behavior, and also for the way my actions have shifted attention away from the students’ campaign for justice,” Click wrote.
That “campaign for justice” was the result of alleged indifference from the MU administration toward accusations of racism. Though most accusations were merely without evidence, some hoaxes were also used to claim the campus was a hotbed of racism.
Students protested these alleged incidents and also called on the college’s president to resign because he didn’t adequately respond to the shooting death of Michael Brown, even though the incident occurred the prior year and two hours away.
These campus crybullies — a term coined by the Wall Street Journal — succeeded in forcing out President Tim Wolfe and said anyone who didn’t believe their accusations outright was complicit in racism. In this setting, a dedicated administrator was forced out for not sufficiently giving in to campus unrest, and a professor that actually threatened a student with violence was allowed to keep her job.
While MU faculty stood by Click, more than 100 Republican state legislators called for her to be fired from her full-time position as assistant professor in the communications department. I’m with Reason’s Robby Soave in believing that those who despise mob justice shouldn’t be calling for it when it suits them. But if Click is convicted, perhaps her job should be questioned.
Click could face up to 15 days in jail and a $300 fine for her actions.
Ashe Schow is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
