In the interest of protecting my back story in case I run for President, I didn’t complete my masters at the University of Missouri, Columbia – but I did visit the campus on a couple of occasions during summer quarter and I thoroughly enjoyed my time with the faculty teaching the media management curriculum. Between my on-campus visits, my participation in a dozen or so classes, and having worked with at least dozens of Mizzou grads over the years as co-workers, I do indeed feel a connection with the school.
Today though, I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed that the school’s fabulous reputation as one of the premier broadcast journalism programs in the country has been trashed by one, seriously misguided, assistant professor of communications (mass media) who made an absolute ass of herself during the on campus demonstrations against the administration.
This fool’s name is Melissa Click, and she called for “muscle” to remove working journalists from the public square on the public university’s public property. She is an embarrassment to alumni, students, journalists and professors everywhere. As a former Missouri student and a working professional in broadcast journalism with 30+ years in this game, I am calling for her immediate resignation.
While the behavior of the students in the video below is regrettable, Click, who enters the fray near the end of the clip, brings the force of her adulthood and her professorship into the equation in an absolute betrayal of all that has been vested and entrusted to her by this profession, this country, and the University.
In case you haven’t picked up on it due to the typically subtle nature of my writing, I’m serious as a heart attack in calling for Click’s resignation.
I want Melissa Click out of Missouri. I want her out of the profession of teaching students about journalism and the role of media. I want her out of any of the allied professions that have any sort of a basis in ethical behavior, rely on the value of the First Amendment, support open government, advance the public discourse and strengthen our Democracy. Her actions cut at the very foundations of all of those things and she’s an example of the kind of wrong-headed victim-culture thinking that is overrunning this country’s college campuses and promises to absolutely wreck those students unfortunate enough to be lead astray by it.
I don’t think I’ve ever called for anybody else’s resignation before in my life. So this is a first.
This is how sickened I am by it.
