Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back in the Classroom

---

---

"I'm a white lady. I'm an easy target."

Melissa Click

---

Foolishly, I suppose, I thought that, when I wrote in February about Melissa Click's dismissal from her job as a journalism professor at the University of Missouri, I would never type her name again.

Sadly, that is not the case. I guess I should have known better, given my years of newspaper work. There are certain people who never go away, no matter how much you may wish they would.

And Ms. Click is one of them. She has surfaced again — to blame her dismissal on "racial politics" in a profile published in the Chronicle of Higher Education last weekend.

To read the article online, you have to be a subscriber, and I am not a subscriber, but I have heard enough about the article's contents from those who are subscribers to know that what I have heard about it is true.

Click contends that she was a victim of racial politics. She says she was fired because she is "an easy target."

"I'm a white lady," she said.

Clearly, she is white. Whether she is a lady is a matter of personal opinion. (Before you reach any conclusions on that, be sure you watch her video from last fall. I posted it with my article in February.)

I know it is fashionable these days to blame one's failures on alleged prejudice. Sometimes it's bewildering — like when one claims to be a member of another race or to be of another gender than one really is and blames a personal failure on prejudice against that race or gender.

But Click is not disputing her race or her gender, just using them as the scapegoats for her dismissal. In my mind, that is worse.

I am a journalist who has taught journalism on the college level, and, as I wrote in February, I was glad the University of Missouri dismissed her. I did not think she was an advocate of freedom of the press or freedom of speech, and I believe that people who teach journalism classes should be effective role models in their defense of both.

In calling for "some muscle" in a blatant effort to prevent a student journalist from covering a news event on a public campus, Click clearly demonstrated that she only believes in freedom of the press and freedom of speech when they are to her benefit.

But freedom of speech and freedom of the press exist to benefit everyone.

And any journalism professor who doesn't understand that has no business being a journalism professor.

Race and gender have absolutely nothing to do with it.

Teaching By Example

---

---

I've been wanting to write about Melissa Click, the now former professor at the University of Missouri, for some time now.

I just haven't really known what to say.

That is what this is all about, you see. Freedom of speech. That is really what we as journalists — and I still count myself as a journalist even though I am no longer working in the field — are meant to defend in this country. Among other things. We are expected to be and to do many things in America, although, sadly, many of today's professional journalists have lost sight of their responsibility.

In my mind, freedom of speech and freedom of the press go hand in hand. I can't remember a time when I did not feel that way, and I can't imagine having one without the other.

The case of Melissa Click is troubling because she is the assistant mass media communications professor who was seen in the memorable video calling for "some muscle" to prevent a student journalist from reporting on a campus protest in November. She was fired this week — and rightfully so.

Click was not a journalism professor per se. But I am sure she worked with journalism students — newspaper, TV, radio, digital — as a professor of mass media communications. I always wanted to attend Mizzou. It was one of the finest journalism schools in the country when I was college age. While I haven't consulted college rankings by department recently, I'm pretty sure it still is.

It is inconceivable to me that a professor of mass media communications would not interact with journalism students at such a school.

In Click's mind, I am reasonably sure that she felt — at that moment — that she was defending freedom of speech. But what did that video tell her journalism students about her commitment to freedom of the press?

I don't know which classes she taught, but I hope she didn't teach one on the Constitution and journalism.

The protest was being held on a public university campus. The press had every right to be there, but Click did not want the press to be there. So she called for "some muscle" to rid her of that pesky press.

I wonder why Richard Nixon never tried that.

I guess the First Amendment is a problem for some people who are in the public eye. But I believe, as I say, that you can't have freedom of speech without freedom of the press and vice versa.

Since the video at the top of this post surfaced, I have been trying to reconcile her actions with that belief.

And I can't.

I wish her well. I'm not vindictive. But I am glad that she is no longer teaching those who seek careers in mass media.