On the firing of Melissa Click

The University of Missouri has fired Melissa Click for an incident in which she was caught on video

calling for “some muscle” to help remove a student journalist from a campus protest he was covering. The professor had been helping to enforce a boundary around an encampment, on the main quad, where students had gathered with members of the faculty and staff to protest racism at the university. Her actions made her an instant villain to people worried that free speech on campuses was being curtailed to create “safe spaces.”^[1]

She had previously “resigned her courtesy appointment with the journalism school,”^[2] She was reportedly “not a faculty member at the University of Missouri’s renowned School of Journalism,”^[3] but now it appears she was an “assistant professor of communication” at the university,^[4] which at schools I’m familiar with would normally suggest that while she had not yet been awarded tenure, she was on a “track” to be so.

In some minds, the University of Missouri’s action raises questions of due process:

Faculty leaders at the university were upset by the [Board of Curators’] decision to take Ms. Click’s fate into its own hands. . . . Faculty leaders on the university system’s other campuses this week endorsed that position. The American Association of University Professors has also weighed in, expressing concern that Ms. Click was being denied due process.

Henry F. (Hank) Reichman, a professor emeritus of history at California State University-East Bay and chairman of the AAUP’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure, said in a post on the association’s Academe blog that the board’s decision “makes a sham of shared governance and due process.” He said Ms. Click had “clearly been made a scapegoat, and the actions of the board and interim chancellor are shameful.”

But no one on the campus filed a complaint against the professor, Ms. Henrickson said, a step that would have triggered the university’s own procedures. “No one took the opportunity to avail themselves of that process,” she said, so the board began its own.^[5]

Click had also reached a deal in which she “must complete 20 hours of community service and not break the law for a year to avoid [criminal] prosecution” for misdemeanor assault.^[6]

For me, Click is in no way a sympathetic figure. I was harsh not only in my criticism of her actions but of the entire notion of “safe spaces” at a public protest in an earlier posting.^[7] In an academic disciplinary hierarchy, journalism normally falls within mass communication, so Click, a communication professor, in my view, has no excuse—even in the heat of the moment—for her actions. At the time she had reportedly resigned, Click said she “regret[s] the language and strategies I used, and sincerely apologize to the M.U. 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.”^[8] In this life, there are very few situations where one side is entirely wrong and the other side is entirely right, but this is one:

“Legally, the photojournalist [Tim Tai] was on completely rock-solid ground,” said Frank LoMonte, executive director of the Student Press Law Center. “That’s not debatable at all.” The entire episode unfolded in the middle of a public quad at a public university. The protesters had every right to camp out and rally, and Tai had every right to take photos, he said.^[9]

The University of Missouri’s Board of Curators, which fired her, reportedly said that “Dr. Click was not entitled to interfere with the rights of others, to confront members of law enforcement, or to encourage potential physical intimidation against a student.”^[10] Confronting cops comes with the territory in protests but the other two of these points are compelling.

In my mind, that moves Click’s case to a different category entirely from that of, say Steven G. Salaita, whose offer of employment was revoked by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign for his criticisms of Israel.^[11] Whatever one may think of Salaita’s opinions (I generally agree with him), he has a right to his views and a right to express them. He did not impede anyone else’s rights in doing so. He did not, despite a tendency of the Israeli government and its apologists to view any criticism of Israel’s policies as an existential threat to the Jewish people, and accordingly to invoke memories of the Holocaust in response,^[12] in fact threaten anyone. His expressions were political speech which should be protected by public institutions, in this case, the University of Illinois.

And that the University of Missouri is a public institution moves Click’s case into a different category from that of Larycia Hawkins, whose theological differences with Wheaton College, a private institution, led to her departure there. Wheaton screwed up royally in Hawkins’ case,^[13] but as Jonathan Turley acknowledged, “this is not a violation of the First Amendment because the college is not a state actor.”^[14]

At stake in Salaita’s and Hawkins’ cases is the principle of academic freedom, which is nothing less than essential. It is an absolute necessity that scholars be free to explore and express ideas, no matter how controversial. They may do so because, as my once-favorite professor (now retired) at California State University, East Bay, did in nearly every class, they want to challenge students to think critically. They may do so as part of a scholarly exchange to subject those ideas to criticism. Lastly, they may do so because their intellectual authority rests on a freedom not merely to express politically-approved ideas but to speak truth as they see it.

Salaita and Hawkins paid a high personal price in demonstrating that academic freedom is inadequately protected. That makes the principle no less worthy.

All that said, the principle of academic freedom does not cover misdemeanor assault. It exists to protect all scholars’ rights, but not to enable one to violate anybody else’s rights in any form. Click cannot, and to my knowledge, does not assert academic freedom as a defense.

In my mind, then, those who would defend Click’s alleged “due process” rights draw their case out a little too far. She deserved to be fired. She probably deserved more severe punishment than she got in her deal with the criminal injustice system. She acknowledged that there was no excuse for what she had done. She did not challenge the evidence against her.

In a better world, we might thoroughly explore the causes for her actions in some detail and seek to remedy them.^[15] But she still needs to understand that what she did was entirely wrong and that the person she acted against was acting entirely within his rights. Until she makes it crystal clear that she understands that, she should not be in academia.

1. ^[1]Steve Kolowich, “Melissa Click, U. of Missouri Professor Who Riled Free-Speech Advocates, Is Fired,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 25, 2016, http://chronicle.com/article/Melissa-Click-U-of-Missouri/235499↩
2. ^[2]Richard Pérez-Peña and Christine Hauser, “University of Missouri Professor Who Confronted Photographer Quits Journalism Post,” New York Times, November 10, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/university-of-missouri-names-law-professor-to-diversity-post.html↩
3. ^[3]Josh Logue, “Journalists as the Enemy,” Inside Higher Ed, November 11, 2015, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/11/video-shows-mizzou-student-press-clash-protestors↩
4. ^[4]Richard Pérez-Peña and Christine Hauser, “University of Missouri Professor Who Confronted Photographer Quits Journalism Post,” New York Times, November 10, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/university-of-missouri-names-law-professor-to-diversity-post.html↩
5. ^[5]Steve Kolowich, “Melissa Click, U. of Missouri Professor Who Riled Free-Speech Advocates, Is Fired,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 25, 2016, http://chronicle.com/article/Melissa-Click-U-of-Missouri/235499↩
6. ^[6]Andy Thomason, “Missouri Professor Who Accosted Journalist Reaches Deal to Avoid Prosecution,” Chronicle of Higher Education, January 29, 2016, http://chronicle.com/blogs/ticker/missouri-professor-who-accosted-journalist-reaches-deal-to-avoid-prosecution/108210↩
7. ^[7]David Benfell, “Squatting on the University of Missouri quad,” Not Housebroken, November 11, 2015, https://disunitedstates.org/?p=8296↩
8. ^[8]Melissa Click, quoted in Richard Pérez-Peña and Christine Hauser, “University of Missouri Professor Who Confronted Photographer Quits Journalism Post,” New York Times, November 10, 2015, http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/11/us/university-of-missouri-names-law-professor-to-diversity-post.html↩
9. ^[9]Josh Logue, “Journalists as the Enemy,” Inside Higher Ed, November 11, 2015, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/11/11/video-shows-mizzou-student-press-clash-protestors↩
10. ^[10]Steve Kolowich, “Melissa Click, U. of Missouri Professor Who Riled Free-Speech Advocates, Is Fired,” Chronicle of Higher Education, February 25, 2016, http://chronicle.com/article/Melissa-Click-U-of-Missouri/235499↩
11. ^[11]Peter Schmidt, “Denial of Job to Harsh Critic of Israel Divides Advocates of Academic Freedom,” Chronicle of Higher Education, August 7, 2014, http://chronicle.com/article/Denial-of-Job-to-Harsh-Critic/148211↩
12. ^[12]Avigail Abarbanel, “A change needs to come,” Electronic Intifada, May 25, 2008, http://electronicintifada.net/content/change-needs-come/7529; Moshe Arens, “Just say it, you want a Palestinian state free of Jews,” December 22, 2015, http://moshearens.com/2015/12/22/just-say-it-you-want-a-palestinian-state-free-of-jews/; Ron Rosenbaum, “Thinking the Unthinkable: A Lamentation for the State of Israel,” Tablet, December 14, 2015, http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/195438/lamentation-for-israel↩
13. ^[13]Kirkland An and Sarah Pulliam Bailey, “Wheaton will not fire professor over Muslim worship comments, but she will leave college,” Washington Post, February 6, 2016, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-faith/wp/2016/02/06/wheaton-lifts-charges-against-professor-who-said-muslims-and-christians-worship-the-same-god/; Scott Jaschik, “Parting of Ways,” Inside Higher Ed, February 8, 2016, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2016/02/08/wheaton-illinois-and-professor-it-moved-fire-reach-agreement-her-resign; Leigh Jones, “Wheaton, Larycia Hawkins agree to part ways,” World, February 6, 2016, http://www.worldmag.com/2016/02/wheaton_larycia_hawkins_agree_to_part_ways; Samuel Smith, “Wheaton College ‘Same God’ Prof. Says Jesus Is Her Rock on Difficult Journey From Advent to Lent,” Christian Post, February 10, 2016, http://www.christianpost.com/news/wheaton-college-larycia-hawkins-same-god-professor-advent-lent-press-conference-jesus-rock-shelter-storm-157333/↩
14. ^[14]Jonathan Turley, “Wheaton College Suspends Professor After She Wore A Hijab And Called For A Stand of Solidarity With Muslims,” January 17, 2015, http://jonathanturley.org/2015/12/17/wheaton-college-suspends-professor-after-she-wore-hijab-and-called-for-a-stand-of-solidarity-with-muslims/↩
15. ^[15]Wanda D. McCaslin and Denise C. Breton, “Justice as Healing: Going Outside the Colonizers’ Cage,” in Handbook of Critical and Indigenous Methodologies, eds. Norman K. Denzin, Yvonna S. Lincoln, and Linda Tuhiwai Smith (Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 2008), 511-529.↩