MU professor Melissa Click is suspended days after assault charges

The University of Missouri professor charged with assault after being accused of pushing a student journalist who was documenting a race-related student protest on campus in November has been suspended.

Following a special board meeting Wednesday afternoon, Pam Henrickson, chair of the university Board of Curators, announced that Melissa Click “is suspended pending further investigation.”

In a teleconference that lasted nearly three hours, curators called for the university general counsel, or outside counsel selected by general counsel, “to immediately conduct an investigation and collaborate with the city attorney and promptly report back to the Board so it may determine whether additional discipline is appropriate,” Henrickson said in a statement released Wednesday evening.

It was not determined whether Click’s suspension would be without pay.

Click, an MU communications professor, was charged Monday with third-degree assault, a misdemeanor that carries a possible 15-day jail sentence.

The charges stem from an incident on Nov. 9, when Click was caught on video calling for “muscle” to remove a student journalist who was photographing a race-related student protest that had drawn national news crews to the Columbia campus.

Mark Schierbecker, an MU student and videographer, accused Click of grabbing his camera and pushing him while he was making the video. His video also included a confrontation between another student journalist, Tim Tai, and Janna Basler, the assistant director for Greek life and leadership at MU. Basler was later put on administrative leave.

The protests eventually led to the resignations of University of Missouri System president Tim Wolfe and Mizzou chancellor R. Bowen Loftin. During a news conference this week, university interim chancellor Hank Foley said a task force consisting of faculty members, students, administrators and staff has been formed to look into what happened at the protest site that led to the Click charges.

Wednesday evening’s suspension announcement followed a series of events at MU, including the release of a scathing and controversial letter written by former UM System president Tim Wolfe and the state of the university address made by Foley.

The curators’ announcement was then topped with the resignation of curator Yvonne S. Sparks of St. Louis.

Sparks, who was appointed to the board in 2015 by Gov. Jay Nixon, said the job required more time than she had anticipated. Her resignation is effective immediately.

“After careful consideration of the demands of my professional obligations and those required to engage in the work of the Board at the level that I expect of myself, I have concluded that it is not possible to do both well,” Sparks said.

This story was originally published January 27, 2016 at 9:30 PM with the headline "MU professor Melissa Click is suspended days after assault charges."