Education

Student Bullied By Mizzou Professor Says She ‘Needs To Go’

Chuck Ross Investigative Reporter
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The student-journalist who recorded Melissa Click stifling First Amendment rights on Monday said that the University of Missouri mass media professor “needs to go.”

“Her actions are a national embarrassment,” Mark Schierbecker told The Daily Caller on Tuesday.

Schierbecker published shocking video showing Click, 44, calling for “muscle” to help remove him as he was trying to record protests taking place after university president Tim Wolfe’s resignation.

Schierbecker, a student at the university, had just finished recording a mob of student-protesters bullying a photojournalist named Tim Tai as he was trying to photograph the protests, which were held after school president Tim Wolfe resigned.

After recording Tai’s harassment, Schierbecker filmed himself asking Click for an interview. Click became immediately hostile and grabbed Schierbecker’s camera while ordering him to leave the premises.

“Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here. I need some muscle over here. Help me get him out,” Click yells out.

After several students circle Schierbecker, the student informed them of his right to be on public property.

“I know, that’s a really good one. I’m a communications faculty and I really get that argument,” Click then tells Schierbecker in a mocking tone.

“You need to go,” she demanded again.

Schierbecker said he had never encountered Click before Monday. He also told TheDC that he was not surprised by how the crowd and the liberal professor treated him.

He also said that while he generally felt in control of the situation, he felt “uncertain” about whether the mob would use violence in order to force him to stop filming the protests.

Schierbecker also said that as of Tuesday morning, nobody from the University of Missouri had contacted him about the altercation. He did say that he has heard from others that the interim president of the University of Missouri system has responded to complaints about the incident, calling them “interesting.”

The school has yet to issue a statement on the potentially-violent encounter, though members of the school’s journalism faculty are reportedly voting to remove her courtesy appointment.

The resignation that sparked Monday’s events came about in response to the Missouri football team’s planned boycott of upcoming football games. (RELATED: Here’s More Video Of A Reporter’s Encounter With Mizzou Professor Who Called For ‘Muscle’)

Dozens of football players threatened the boycott in solidarity with Jonathan Butler, a graduate student who had embarked on a hunger strike after claiming that Wolfe had not done enough to address racially-tinged incidents on campus. One of those incidents involved a swastika drawn on a campus bathroom wall with human feces. A spokesman for the university’s police department told TheDC on Monday that the investigation into that incident is still ongoing and that a suspect has not yet been identified. It is unclear if anyone saw the culprit, or if it is a racially-motivated or merely a hoax.

Click did not respond to emails and voice mails left by TheDC. Since Schierbecker’s videos have gone viral, she shut down her Twitter account and began scrubbing her Facebook account.

This post has been updated with new information.

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