Melissa Click: New Video Shows MU Professor Demonstrating at Homecoming Parade
ByThe University of Missouri has stated it is aware of a newly released video showing Melissa Click verbally assaulting police officers during the school's Homecoming Parade in Oct.
Click, an assistant professor of communications at MU, is already suspended for shoving a student and calling for "muscle" to move him away from the campus quad during the demonstrations in the wake of Tim Wolfe's resignation.
In a video obtained by The Columbia Missourian, Click is seen putting herself between Columbia Police officers and the student group known as Concerned Student 1950. During the Oct. parade, the demonstrators tried to block Wolfe's car as it passed to protest the former MU system president's perceived indifference to racist issues on campus.
Though the police do not appear to be using unnecessary force, they are trying to get the demonstrators off the street and onto the sidewalk. Click can be heard shouting at the officers to "back up" and to get their "hands off" her and the demonstrators.
"Last night, like many in our community, I watched newly released footage of Dr. Melissa Click directing a verbal assault against members of the Columbia Police Department during the homecoming parade in October 2015," MU Interim Chancellor Hank Foley said in a statement issued Sunday. "Her conduct and behavior are appalling, and I am not only disappointed, I am angry, that a member of our faculty acted this way. Her actions caught on camera last October, are just another example of a pattern of misconduct by Dr. Click-most notably, her assault on one of our students while seeking 'muscle' during a highly volatile situation on Carnahan Quadrangle in November. We must have high expectations of members of our community, and I will address these new revelations with the Board of Curators as they work to complete their own review of the matter."
Click is serving a suspension pending an investigation for her involvement in the Nov. demonstrations that followed Wolfe's resignation. The student who recorded his interaction with Click pressed charges and the City Prosecutor filed a misdemeanor assault charge against her.
That charge will be dropped if she completes a community service program, though her employment with MU may still be in danger. The MU Board of Curators began reviewing her for tenure about a month before the Homecoming Parade incident, so it is unclear if either demonstration will factor into that review.