Press should not be silenced

Colleges and universities are supposed to be places where students can go to broaden their horizons. They should foster an environment where students find new ways to look at art, politics, love and war, and life. They should teach students to stand up for academic and political freedoms. They should instigate rigorous, thought-provoking debate.

The university system has drifted away from these principles, and in some cases, the freedoms of the students are not being fostered at all, but rather, they are being taken away.

On Nov. 9, Tim Tai and Mark Schierbecker, student journalists from the University of Missouri, were covering the Concerned Student 1950 protests taking place in the University’s Carnahan Quad.

The protestors had previously asked that the media stay away. In a tweet, the group stated, “We ask for no media in the parameters so the place where people live, fellowship, & sleep can be protected from twisted, insincere narratives.”

Protestors, who shouted things like, “Hey hey, ho ho, reporters have got to go,” and “You have no right to take our photos,” met the two journalists.

The student journalists said that they had the right to take photos, citing the First Amendment.

“The same First Amendment that protects you standing here,” Tai said.

Melissa Click, an assistant professor of mass media at the university, got in the boys’ faces and told them that they needed to get out. She shoved them and covered the cameras with her hands.

In Schierbecker’s video of the incident, Shierbecker is heard saying, “This is public property.”

And Click replied, “Yeah, I know, that’s a really good one; I’m a communication faculty, and I really get that argument. But you need to go. You need to go. You need to go.”

Not only did Click assault a student, but she blatantly stripped him of his right to freedom of the press. Granted, she was defending the proclaimed “safe space” of the protestors.

A “safe space” is a right that every American is granted within their home, domicile, or other designated areas along with their First Amendment rights. However, the proclaimed “safe space” the Concerned Students 1950 chose, and that Click was so aggressively defending, happened to be in the center of a public space.

Camping in the Quad is a great idea if the purpose is to attract the attention of the public to your cause and your fight against injustice. If these students were in search of a private fight, they should have chosen places like their homes, or dorm rooms, or other places where privacy is guaranteed.

Not only were the protected rights of the journalists taken away, but every student affected by the protests, the journalists, and mainly the protestors, were stripped of a golden teaching opportunity.

The students were not taught that if they chose to protest in a public forum, they must accept that the public and the press can observe, scrutinize, and comment on the protest.

The protestors were, in fact, taught that if they want to participate in civil disobedience and social activism, that they could keep complete and utter control of their story, which is not the case. They were taught more of what Generation Y was raised on; you can have your cake and eat it too.

As a journalists, I commend Tai and Schierbecker for carrying themselves with dignity and composure in the face of adversity, and having an apparent knowledge of First Amendment law.

The University of Missouri announced last Tuesday that Law Professor Michael Middleton will take the helm of the ailing university. It is my hope that as he tries to heal the school’s race-relation wounds, he will also help his faculty and staff brush up on their knowledge of and appreciation for the First Amendment.