An assistant professor of mass media joined a group of students from the University of Missouri as they tried to block a student reporter from filming a tent city that was part of an on-campus protest last Monday.

The university is the largest and oldest public college for journalism.

Assitant professor Melissa Click tried to grab the video camera from Mark Schierbecker, who was recording the interaction between the students and reporter Tim Tai.

In the video, the professor calls for some "muscle" to "get this reporter out of here".

The protesters in the tent camp were part of a months-long student protest over racism on campus. The protests included a hunger strike by graduate student Jonathan Butler and a refusal by the school's football team to play last weekend.

University president Tim Wolfe resigned after the incident.

Ironically, Click had previously asked national media to cover the protests on her Twitter page.