Racial Protest Turns Into Something More

University of Missouri professor under fire in protest flap

written by Aamer Madhani and Roger Yu, USA TODAY

Who? 

Tim Tai, a 20 year-old senior at the University
What? 

Journalist working a freelance assignment for ESPN, trying to take pictures of a public quad, but the protesters at the university stopped him and wouldn’t let him take any pictures. Professor tells him that he needs to leave, but when he doesn’t she tries to call for “backup”.
Where?
University of Missouri

When? 

November 10, 2015
Why? 

To stop a journalist from taking pictures of their tent encampment and the protest. protestors are protesting about trying to force President Tim Wolfe out of the school to resign on Monday


 Democratic Values:

Freedom to assemble-

The first amendment was violated when Melissa Click told the crowd of protesters that she needed help and “muscle” to get “unwanted” journalists removed. Since this protest was a public event the news media have first amendment rights.

Freedom of the press-

Tim Tai’s job is photojournalism and when Melissa Click and other students prohibited him from taking pictures or videos of the protest his right for freedom of the press was violated. Melissa Click is also seen attempting to grab the camera of the photojournalist, Mark Schierbecker.

Liberty-

Liberty is the state of being free within society from oppressive restrictions imposed by authority on one's way of life, behavior, or political views. And in this situation the journalist tries to get past the protesters, but is stopped by them. They don’t seem to care about his job. They tried to take his camera, and started to push him back.

Bias

The biases of this article are against the professor Melissa Click, and are backing up the journalist Tim Tai and Mark Schierbecker. It mostly shows how Click violated the rights in the first amendment and how many people including other faculty, students, and alumni are standing up for the rights of Tim Tai and other journalists because they are acknowledging what the professor did was wrong. “The Missouri Journalism school is proud of photojournalist senior Tim Tai,” said by the Dean of The Missouri School of Journalism. It even shows Click apologizing for what she had said and done to the journalist. The article expresses someone saying Click’s response showed “the apology is lacking” which makes the article more in favor of the journalists. It also talks about how Melissa Click resigned from the school of journalism as a professor but still continues to work as an assistant professor at the university.     

This image above shows the students of the university trying to block Tim Tai, a journalist from taking any pictures for his freelance job at ESPN. They tried to manhandle his equipment, and started to push him back so he couldn’t get any further.

link: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2015/11/10/missouri-journalism-school-commends-student-tai-reviews-professors-status/75536062/