You may well recall the altercation between Professor Melissa Click and student journalist Mark Schierbecker on the Carnahan Quadrangle, in the wake of the Concerned Student 1950 protests which resulted in resignations of top collegiate officials. If not, here is a bit of background, from the relevant wiki:
After the announcement of the [University of Misssouri leadership] resignations, there was a widely publicized dispute between photojournalist Tim Tai and protesters on Carnahan Quad, where they had erected an encampment. While attempting to cover the event on a freelance assignment for ESPN, Tai got into a debate with, and was physically confronted by, students and those who would later be identified as University of Missouri staff and faculty.[39] Video of the incident where Tai debated First Amendment rights to be in the public area was recorded by student Mark Schierbecker and became widely distributed and commented on in the mainstream media.
The day after the incident, with Tai getting support from the Missouri Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder and others, Concerned Student put up fliers calling the confrontation between journalists and protesters a “Teachable Moment” and directing the students to welcome the media to campus as a way to tell the story of the protests. The student group also removed signs previously put up warning the media to stay away from the student encampments.[40] Three University of Missouri employees involved in the altercation subsequently apologized, one of them, Melissa Click (whose call for “some muscle” to remove Schierbecker from the scene had received wide attention due to the video), resigning from her courtesy appointment at the Missouri School of Journalism.[41][42] On January 25, 2016, Click was charged with misdemeanor assault linked to her behavior during the incident.[43][44]
Here again is the video of that particular altercation:
The journalist recording the video was one Mark Schierbecker, an atheist activist who would go on to do a Q&A session with audience at Skepticon:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lfXKQyHuleA
The general feeling in the audience at the time was that we needed to stop asking whether Melissa Click did anything wrong (social justice allies get a free pass) and refocus our efforts on the less particularized problem institutional racism. The Q&A event was later described by those who usually support Skepticon as racist, a misstep and a PR disaster. Others were somewhat more supportive of Schierbecker, such as the co-founder of Skepticon and the hosts of the Blue Ball Skeptic podcast.
With all that as prologue, it was reported last week that Melissa Click has been fired by the University of Missouri:
The protests at the flagship state university over race and other bias issues had paralyzed the campus and forced the resignation of the system president and chancellor. When a student journalist said he had a First Amendment right to be there and take photos, Click said, “I can’t hear you!” and started chanting, according to a transcript released by the university system, “Hey hey! Ho ho! Reporters have got to go!”
Click apologized, and many professors defended her and the principle of academic freedom, but the earlier image of her became a symbol for others of attempts to muzzle freedom of speech and of a public university system in chaos.
The board of curators voted Wednesday night to terminate Click, an assistant professor in the communications department.
This strikes me as an appropriate outcome for any state employee who abuses their authority in order to take a stand against freedom of the press.
Your thoughts?
