The controversy surrounding the resigned of University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe this week. Critics continue to debate whether Wolfe acted in a way that warranted demands for his removal while others view racial incidents on campus as the fault of the Administration. This is a worthy debate for any university. However, a recent incident should raise equally determined calls for the removal of school officials who appear to have led attacks on the media and free speech as part of student protests. Mass communications professor Melissa Click has since apologized for disgraceful conduct in attacking the media — a curious act by a mass communications professor and the antithesis of an academic committed to free speech.
A confrontation occurred as journalists, including students journalists, simply tried to cover the event. They were set upon by protesters threatening them and telling them to leave. Tim Tai, 20, is a senior at the university working on a freelance assignment for ESPN, went to the protesters’ tent encampment. Protesters insisted that he had no right to cover the event and chanted “Hey hey! Ho ho! Reporters have got to go!”
One school administrator, identified as Janna Basler, the school’s director of Greek life and leadership, is seen on the video confronting Tai. When he asks her name, Basler refused to identify herself — a problem for a school official on campus harassing a journalist. Instead, she say “I am Concerned Student 1950,” a reference to the name of the African-American group leading the protests.
Near the end of the video, another adult, identified as assistant professor of mass media Melissa Click, tells another reporter, “You need to get out.” She appears to call on other protesters to help force out the journalist. She is heard saying “Who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here.”
That is a disgrace and should have immediately raised calls for the review of both of these employees for discipline. What they were doing was joining voices of intolerance and abuse. They are the very antithesis of the mission of all academics.
Click has now apologized, stating “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.”
There is no word about Basler. The concern is the double standard at our universities. We have discussed that controversy at the University of California and Boston University, where there have been criticism of a double standard, even in the face of criminal conduct. Here you have a communications professor and an administrator seem encouraging protesters in denying a student the ability to work as a journalist on campus. Yet, there is no outcry and demands for review, let alone termination. There is a serious diminishment of free speech occurring on our campuses where a new orthodoxy is rising in the enforcement of preferred speech and positions. The intolerance shown opposing views threatens the very essence of our intellectual traditions and values. The video below vividly shows that trend.
We’ve been watching the rise of the new Fascism of the Left. Gradually, people get fired for having non-Left positions, attacked on campus for non-Left positions, lawlessness as federal law is set aside for amnesty for 5 million illegal aliens, government officials like Hillary Clinton utterly impervious to the law as she uploaded top secret information to the cloud, then lied about it and wiped her server, and Obama has a “phone and a pen” to make law like any dictator.
Hmmm. Where would any reasonable person believe this trend will lead in 25 years? 100? 500?
@ Roy
It was heartening to see the men and others on the train defending the Asian lady. Everyone just sat hoping that the crazy lady would just shut up and get off of the car, but when they needed to, they responded in defense.
Good for them.
I often wonder about long term trends. What will America be like in 500 years considering how rapidly our culture and Constitutional checks and balances have eroded over just the past decade?
I do not think dystopian novelists need to look far for plot devices.
How sad. The protesters may have a point about their protests but their actions in the video make it very hard to take them seriously.
This is not an isolated incident. This is a trend.
The irony of a women’s studies professor physically attacking young women who had anti-abortion signs, and a mass communications professor asking for “muscle” to physically remove, and probably harm, a journalism student, seems to be completely lost on those paid to teach our children.
I do not blame the professors. I blame the universities. Clearly policy has emboldened these professors to fight against free speech, critical thinking, open debate, women’s rights to their own opinions, and journalism. And as long as there is no change in the revenue coming in from parents sending their kids there, nothing will change.
Only hitting their bottom line will affect change. If parents don’t want their kids to learn how to be rabid anti-free-speech despots, then they shouldn’t send their kids there. Then the university admin will forbid this kind of behavior in their employees. And then their employees will learn how to restrain themselves.
Why does this behavior usually not happen in private non-union industry? Because they would be instantly fired. So people control their behavior.
Dust Bunny Queen
1, November 11, 2015 at 10:18 am
No, free speech comes with standards. We learn -“If you can’t say something nice, say nothing.”
Shut up, she explained.
If she believes in this standard why didn’t she apply it to the UM “professor” (or the Yale shrieker)?
Too many people start with their desires and make up the justification afterward.
Roy
No legal analysis required. It’s simple. The Crazy White Lady, as you so aptly put it, was on her way to an interview for a position as a professor–probably NYU. What you witnessed were just some pre-interview jitters–nothing more. But, hey, great news! I hear she’s tenured and the chairperson of her department. Ain’t life grand?
Hey, Ann Lane, I’m curious.
Any relation to Penny Lane?
Lol! 🙂
No, free speech comes with standards. We learn -“If you can’t say something nice, say nothing.”
Shut up, she explained.
This attitude is exactly the problem that we see on these college campuses and in the SJW movement. The feeling that you must agree with ME or shut up. If you don’t agree we will MAKE you shut up. With force. (fascists)
The students at the Missouri campus as well as the teachers there seem to think that they have the right to not be filmed or photographed while conducting protests/riots in a public place. It is a public place and they have no expectation of privacy. They want to have their say with no opposition or any other viewpoints. Banning speakers who may have a contrary thought….Germaine Greer. Protesting to shut up anyone who might possibly disagree with their set in amber world views.
Free speech is not always pleasant. Deal with it.
I don’t mean the freedom to call people personally offensive names (fighting words), or to incite riots. I mean the freedom to criticize their ideas and actions….and yes, even opine that their ideas and actions are stupid. The freedom to present and argue ideas that may be offensive or uncomfortable.
Adults are able to cope with this type of dissension and deal with the concepts. It doesn’t mean that you must accept the contrary ideas, but if you refuse to listen or insist that If you can’t say something nice, say nothing. must be the rule, then you are living with your head firmly ensconced where the sun doesn’t shine and you will learn nothing in life.
Once outside of the liberal bubble of academia, these students are going to eventually have a rude awakening when they find out that NO. ONE. CARES. about their fragile emotions or their wants and demands.
Grow up kiddies. It is a rough world out there.
Ann Lane,
Crazy White lady attacks an NYC subway rider who is an Asian female minding her own business. What would you do? Video is for your legal analysis. Roll it.
This is not the first time that students got rid of a university president. During the wild and woolly 1970’s students and faculty of Rice University got rid of the newly appointed president by voting. The student leaders had prepared a ballot of three issues to be answered with yes or no. All students and faculty could vote. The result would not be made public but would be known to the president. He resigned.
About a day before the voting the student leaders called for a protest march on the administration building. They called faculty members and asked “come well dressed and behave orderly because much of the city expects to see a rabble on the TV coverage”. That was a brilliant strategy because the TV coverage of the march lasted about one minute only! No pot-smoking students and faculty. Not interesting.
Wow. The president of Mizzou makes $450,000 a year? Could that really be true? No wonder he was crying at the news conference.
Ann Lane is part of the problem. She doesn’t understand free speech. The ACLU of Missouri has condemned what is going on w/ the Mizzou Police and on campus. But, @ least she has the stones to come here and say what she thinks. I’ll give her that. It seems the liberal contingent who comment here are ashamed of this display @ Mizzou. That’s a good sign. I thought they were shameless.
Ann Lane sounds like she works at Mizzou.
Look, Ann, your side has become increasingly and explicitly fascist across college campuses and in the federal government. Like you, they want people just to shut up.
Sorry, that SJW talk has to stop, and now.
A frightening display of what has become of our nation, where the “Ferguson Effect” of mob rule, lawlessness, intimidation and anarchy have now spread to our campuses. The article begins with, MISSOURI PROFESSOR AND ADMINISTRATOR CAPTURED ON TAPE LEADING ATTACKS ON JOURNALISTS. I must say, I’m not so concerned with the actions of one, or two, screwball professors. I’m more concerned with the MOB of alleged students–many of whom, I suspect, of being members of various radical and anarchist groups–using its numbers and power, to force its demands and beliefs. This is more than the work of one nutjob, so the title is quite misleading, to say the least, in that it fails to portray the widespread criminal behavior of the group. Where were the police as this was episode was unfolding? Too nervous about being dragged into a no-win situation in which they would, once again, be portrayed as the aggressor? I can’t say that I blame them for hiding in the shadows. Peter Kinder, who is running for governor, was quoted in the local paper as denouncing the acts, including the subsequent response by the university, as a travesty in which mob rule was allowed to succeed. Peter, wherever you are, you have my vote. Acquiescence, by the school, to the demands of this unlawful and aggressive mob, was the biggest mistake that Mizzou could’ve ever made. The message was loud and clear: mob rule, using fear, intimidation and force, dictates the manner in which society operates. Yes, indeed, a teachable moment. I fully expect scenes, such as the one witnessed at this university, to now spread across the country, as false accounts of “racial” discrimination are claimed in an effort to enact “fundamental” change. I sincerely hope that those major benefactors, contributing to the school, voice their objections to the manner in which this whole travesty was handled by never giving the place another dime.
As an aside, I couldn’t help but notice how the ASIAN journalist was pushed, threatened and intimidated by a mob protesting some faux claims of racial discrimination. He may be a racial minority, but he’s just not the correct racial minority.
What they were doing was joining voices of intolerance and abuse. They are the very antithesis of the mission of all academics.
Jonathan:
At some point people have to understand the difference between what they wish were true and what is true. The mission of most academics in soft departments is political activism.
I use to like this blog. Now it seems to feed the crazy. A year ago, the comments were somewhat relevant. Now this is just a blog to beat up people. Is this free speech? This just seems to be one more hate ridden blog on the internet. There is no serious discussion, just readers beating up the liberals or whatever else they hate. Free speech demands civility. What does Turley want, everyone speaking ugly and free to say whatever they want. Free speech demands responsibility and civility. Your readers seem to follow your advice on “say whatever you want-we are entitled”. No, free speech comes with standards. We learn -“If you can’t say something nice, say nothing.”
Celebrate mob justice. What could possibly go wrong?
“Near the end of the video, another adult, identified as assistant professor of mass media Melissa Click, tells another reporter, “You need to get out.””
Jonathan, what do you mean by “another adult?” The students on that campus are adults. Please don’t play into the pervasive notion that college students are still children in need of protection from the big bad world. It’s almost terrifying that these perpetual children, who are legal adults, are going to be running everything in twenty to thirty years while getting directions from mommy and daddy in the nursing home.
No one is talking about the segregated Frats at Good Ol Mizzou. Yeah. All white boys frats, all white girls frats, all black boys frats, all black girls frats. Do away with frats.