POSTED 10:21 PM, NOVEMBER 9, 2015, BY ANDREW LYNCH, UPDATED AT 10:34PM, NOVEMBER 9, 2015
COLUMBIA, Mo. — With a graduate student on hunger strike and a group of students supporting him, including the University of Missouri’s football team, Tim Wolfe stepped down from his position as system president, and was later joined university chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, who will resign at the end of the year. Both moves were announced on Monday, and attracted a throng of media to the mid-Missouri campus to cover the fallout from what the protesters say were inadequate responses to numerous racist incidents.
As journalists continued to cover activity on the Mel Carnahan Quadrangle, they were not met with open arms, and were shown they weren’t welcome.
With that in mind pic.twitter.com/2m0g12TGu4
— ConcernedStudent1950 (@CS_1950) November 10, 2015
A YouTube video shot by Mark Schierbecker exhibits a showdown between the protesters and photojournalist Tim Tai, who is finishing his degree at the university according to his website. In the video, Tai is seen trying to take photographs after the protesters formed a perimeter to deny entry to a campsite on the quad.
Early in the video, protesters chant, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, reporters have got to go,” as a group starts to push the perimeter in Tai’s direction. The photographer repetitively asserts his first amendment rights as a journalist to cover the events on the public quad, but faced backlash not only from the students, but people identified as university employees as well.
The tweet from the Missouri School of Journalism professor identifies Director of Greek Life and Leadership, Janna Basler, and mass media assistant professor Melissa Click as the two employees who are seen in the video. As the crowd continues to push against Tai, Click is seen at the end of the video turning her attention to Schierbecker and ordering him out, asking the other students for some “muscle.”
Many have been critical of the behavior in the video.
