Mizzou professor who called for 'muscle' suspended

A University of Missouri assistant professor who has faced an avalanche of criticism after she was caught on video calling for "some muscle" to help her eject a student journalist at a protest site on campus has been suspended from her duties, the University of Missouri System Board of Curators announced Wednesday.

The decision to suspend Melissa Click came two days after the Columbia, Mo. city prosecutor's office announced it had filed a misdemeanor simple assault charge against the department of communication professor. The charge relates to the Nov. 9 incident on campus that captured national attention.

“MU Professor Melissa Click is suspended pending further investigation," said Pam Henrickson, chairwoman of the Board of Curators, which governs the four University of Missouri campuses. "The Board of Curators directs the 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.”

Click was filmed having physical contact and berating a student journalist who was trying to conduct interviews at a campsite set up on the university's flagship campus in Columbia by students protesting the treatment of African Americans by administrators.

A video of the confrontation, which was taken by student journalist Mark Schierbecker and went viral on the Internet, begins with a group of protesters yelling and pushing another student journalist, Tim Tai, who was trying to photograph the campsite. At the end of the video, Schierbecker approaches Click, who calls for "some muscle" to remove him from the protest area. She then appears to grab at Schierbecker's camera.

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Click, who will continue to be paid during her suspension, was at the protest site as an ally of the activist group Concerned Student 1950, which organized weeks of protests on campus. Those protests culminated with the University of Missouri system president and the chancellor of the university's Columbia campus resigning their posts.

For more than two months, officials at the university refused to comment about Click's status at Missouri. Earlier this month, more than 100 GOP state lawmakers called on the university and the Board of Curators to fire Click, who is in the process of applying for tenure at the university.

David Steelman, a member of the Board of Curators, told USA TODAY earlier this month that he wanted Click fired and was unhappy with how administrators at the Columbia campus were dealing with the issue.

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Following the announcement of the charge against Click on Monday, interim chancellor Hank Foley apologized to Schierbecker but said the university planned on allowing the tenure process to unfold normally for Click.

"When we deviate from such time-honored traditions at the university, as some have called for, we tend to make mistakes, and it often leads to turmoil," Foley said.

Click and Christian Basi, a spokesman at the flagship university campus, did not immediately respond to requests for comment on Wednesday evening.

Follow USA TODAY correspondent Aamer Madhani on Twitter: @AamerISmad