Melissa Click, a former University of Missouri assistant professor, who was fired after she tried to block a student journalist from covering a protest on campus said she was let go because she's a white woman and an "easy target."
"This is all about racial politics," said Click in a recent interview with The Chronicle of Higher Education, according to the
Washington Times. "I'm a white lady. I'm an easy target."
Ms. Click noted her termination was because the state's Board of Curators wanted to send a message that Missouri would not tolerate "black people standing up to white people."
According to the Times, Ms. Click was suspended and later fired after a now-viral video showed her attempting to grab a camera away from student Mark Schierbecker and calling for "some muscle" to remove him from a group of black student protesters.
Assault charges against her were dropped and she was later given 20 hours of community service. Ms. Click claimed she was trying to protect the protesters, the Times reports.
"While Ms. Click acknowledges that she was certainly frustrated that day, she says she was simply trying to protect the black student protesters," The Chronicle reported, notes the Times.
"Everything she has come to stand for since the video came out — intolerance, anger, mouthiness, and dismissiveness — is exactly the opposite of who she says she really is. Focusing on her behavior, she says, is a way to take attention away from the demands of Concerned Student 1950, the group of protesters."
"I wasn't in charge," said Click, according to the Times. "[But] when it got out of control, I was the one held accountable."
Writing in
The Washington Post, Click says "we should all be concerned about the larger issues my situation raises . . . I don't want to live in a world where citizens are too afraid of public scorn to take a chance. Do you?"
Ms. Click says she plans to sue the University of Missouri for denying her due process, according to the Times.
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