COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- The University of Missouri system's governing board is dismissing a national professors group's claims that an educator was unjustly fired over her run-ins with student journalists.
The curators rebuffed the American Association of University Professors' contention that assistant communications professor Melissa Click didn't get due process before the board fired her last month. The curators rejected her appeal Tuesday.
The Columbia campus educator's caught-on-video confrontations with police during October protests in Columbia and with two student journalists weeks later drew national attention.
She has insisted that her ouster was unfair and that normal, on-campus procedures weren't followed.
But the curators said Thursday it has ultimate authority to fire a faculty member and was compelled to in Click's case because "existing university procedures failed to address the seriousness of (her) conduct."