Melissa A. Click, the University of Missouri communications professor who tried to block student journalists from covering a campus protest in November, has been suspended by the university system’s Board of Curators. In a statement posted after a special meeting of the board on Wednesday night, the board said Ms. Click had been suspended “pending further investigation,” with the possibility of “additional discipline.”
Since she was caught on camera last fall calling for “some muscle” to remove student journalists from the scene of a protest, Ms. Click, who apologized for her behavior, has drawn the ire of free-speech advocates nationwide. More than 100 Republican state lawmakers signed a letter last month demanding that Ms. Click — and another employee who confronted the journalists — be fired. More than 100 faculty members at Mizzou responded with a letter of support for Ms. Click, saying the video incident was “at most a regrettable mistake.”
Earlier this week, Ms. Click was charged with misdemeanor assault in relation to her actions at the protest, which concerned racism on the campus, among other things, and was a factor in the ouster of top Mizzou leaders. She has pleaded not guilty, and has not responded to media requests for comment.
The Columbia campus’s interim chancellor, Henry C. (Hank) Foley, had said on Monday that the university would resist “hasty action” and “allow due process to play out.”
After the board announced Ms. Click’s suspension, on Wednesday night, Ben Trachtenberg, an associate professor of law who is chair of the campus’s Faculty Council, called the curators’ move “tremendously unfortunate” and said it would set back efforts to heal the rifts caused by the racial unrest and administrative turnover in the fall.
“The president and chancellor are supposed to be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the university, and they should have been allowed to do their job under the rules that govern the university,” he said.
A complaint should have been brought in writing, and Ms. Click should have had the opportunity to present evidence and see the charges against her before her case went through the proper academic channels, he said.
Ms. Click’s suspension comes amid continued turmoil for the University of Missouri and its flagship campus. Since the system’s president, Timothy M. Wolfe, and the flagship’s chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin, were forced out at the height of the protests, the campus has been trying to chart a way forward.
But controversy around the ousters has persisted. Soon after the resignations, The Chronicle reported that the departure of Mr. Loftin was a long-engineered coup by deans at the flagship. And Wednesday saw the disclosure of a letter from Mr. Wolfe in which he took to task several current and former university leaders for acting inappropriately, he said, and forcing his resignation.
Meanwhile, protests inspired by the activists in Missouri continue across the country.
Katherine Mangan contributed to this report.