“Reporters have got to go”, and a few tried to block a freelance student photographer from covering protesters’ celebratory reaction to the system president’s departure over what they saw as indifference to racial tensions at the school.
Advertisement
NY Jets defensive Sheldon Richardson says he isn’t surprised the University of Missouri football team was able to have a large impact when players staged a two-day walkout as part of protests over the school’s handling of racial issues.
The pressure worked. Wolfe resigned Monday, followed hours later by Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin.
Campus police Capt. Brian Weimer said additional officers were on campus.
Security was heightened across campus at the University of Missouri Tuesday, because of reports of threats.
The YikYak scare came the same night Mizzou student body president Payton Head – whose story of a racist encounter spearheaded the ongoing student upheaval – apparently cried wolf over a Ku Klux Klan sighting on the mostly-white campus.
Concerns for campus safety intensified last night after an individual went to Yik Yak and posted that they would “stand my ground and shoot every black person I see on campus”. The woman has been identified as an assistant professor of mass media, Melissa Click, by the NY Times.
During the height of the protests this week, professor and demonstrator Melissa Click was filmed grabbing a journalist’s video camera, telling him he had no right to be there.
Tai was primarily confronted by Jana Basler, the associate director of the school’s Department of Student Life.
Gaby Rodriguez, a senior, said she was at work when she heard about the threats.
Missouri’s journalism school executive committee said in a statement that the video showed that its student journalists “acted professionally when faced with a hard scenario”, noted the Missourian.
Concerned Student 1950, led by University of Missouri graduate student Jonathan Butler, second from right, speaks following the announcement that University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe would resign Monday, November 9, 2015, in Columbia, Mo.
This week’s events at the University of Missouri seemed to unfold rapidly, with little warning. When I apologized to one of the reporters in a phone call this afternoon, he accepted my apology.
Tai told The Huffington Post that Click had apologized to him, and said she was “very gracious”.
“On Twitter, though, many black students said they were too afraid to attend classes today”.
The campus police department said it was continuing to investigate the threats.
Activists have been removing an encampment on the campus – the scene of protests for more than a week – after weather forecasters predicted severe weather could hit the area on Wednesday.
Advertisement
Social video captured University of Missouri students singing “we shall overcome” in celebration of President Tim Wolfe’s resignation.
