The War on Free Speech Continues at U-MO

This quote from one of the 150 professors who supported Melissa Click's strong arming the media says it all:

“Overall, I’m OK with actual violence, like actual political violence,” Rob Rasmussen, who unsuccessfully ran for the city council in Columbia, Mo. (the university’s home), last April, explained to National Review after we contacted him for clarification on his November e-mail of support for Click, in which he wrote that she was “100% in the right.”

Rasmussen continued: “I’m OK — I’d be fine if we brought back the guillotine and cut off the Koch brothers’ heads. That would be OK with me. I think that would be OK.” He added that protesters occupying public spaces should have the right to shut out the media because “with Occupy Wall Street, a lot of us lefties learned that if you give open access to the media, some people with an agenda will try to find people in your camp who will say ridiculous things and make it look like your whole group [supports those stances].”

The Chronicle makes no mention of one racist support email praising Click for “stopping that nasty Asian dude” — student reporter Timothy Tai — “from disrupting your event.” It also neglects to mention a supporter who called Click’s actions “a disservice to both you and to the University” — that is, “of course assuming here that there aren’t circumstances of which I’m [un]aware (e.g., the reporter is from a conservative student newspaper with a history of distortion that rivals Fox News.)”

The Chronicle did, however, quote in detail some of the “threats and horrorcore” sent to Click. “I plan to belly-laugh when someone shanks you or sets you on fire in the next week,” the article excerpts. “I hope you’re gang-raped by some of the very animals with whom you’re so enamored,” another e-mail quoted by the Chronicle said. Click’s critics also frequently engaged in “impertinent axe-grinding” and “meta-outrage,” the Chronicle describes dismissively.

But such emails were few and far between, National Review’s review of more than 1,100 pages of emails, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act, shows. Most of the correspondence condemned Click’s actions in a tone that was outraged but fairly civil.

Current students, parents of students, alumni, journalists, and at least one donor appropriately expressed their disapproval, calling Click’s behavior “shameful,” “not in the best interest of the university,” “embarrassing,” and “a blatant violation of [students’] First Amendment rights.”
[Emphasis added]