AAUP’s vote to censure of the University of Missouri at Columbia

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Leaders of the American Association of University Professors described many of its members as under assault by neoliberal, bottom-line-focused college governing boards as the group voted on Saturday to denounce several institutions for trampling faculty rights.

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Threats in Missouri

The AAUP’s vote to censure of the University of Missouri at Columbia came in response to the firing of Melissa A. Click, an assistant professor of communication, over her highly publicized clashes with student journalists during last fall’s protests on her campus. An AAUP investigation concluded that the board had denied her sufficient due process by terminating her without a faculty hearing, and should have given her at least one year’s salary or notice rather than cutting off her pay immediately after her appeal of her dismissal was rejected. Ms. Click, who had been videotaped calling for "muscle" to have a journalist removed from the campus quad, has been the subject of threats of violence, and the AAUP’s investigators who handled her case similarly faced death threats and had to check into a local hotel under assumed names, said Henry F. (Hank) Reichman, chairman of the association’s Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure. The AAUP statement calling for censure said state lawmakers had unduly interfered in her case, using threats of negative consequences such as budget cuts to get the University of Missouri system’s Board of Curators to vote to fire her. The Missouri board responded to the censure vote by reiterating its position that it had afforded Ms. Click sufficient due process and that her dismissal was in the best interest of the university and its students.

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