Republicans in Missouri want professor Melissa Click fired but her fellow professors are standing by her.

The Kansas City Star reports.

University of Missouri faculty support professor whom Republicans want fired

University of Missouri faculty members on Tuesday came out in support of Melissa Click, the embattled MU professor who famously asked for some “muscle” to move a student journalist away from protesters during anti-racism protests on campus in November.

On Monday, a group of more than 100 Republicans in the state General Assembly demanded, in a letter to the MU Board of Curators, that the university immediately fire Click, an assistant communications professor at the Columbia campus.

As a counter to the lawmakers’ letter, MU faculty made public a letter that had been sent in December to university department deans, top administrators and the Faculty Council chair. The letter was signed by more than 115 faculty members.

“We wish to state in no uncertain terms our support for Click as a member of the University of Missouri faculty who has earned her position through an outstanding record of teaching and research,” the faculty letter stated.

“We believe that her actions on November 9 constitute at most a regrettable mistake, one that came, moreover, at the end of several weeks during which Click served alongside other faculty and staff as an ally to students who were protesting what they saw as their exclusion from and isolation at the University,” it said.

The lawmakers, in their letter, accused Click of grabbing the student journalist’s camera and calling on those around her to bring “some muscle” to remove the photographer and other reporters from the area. Video featuring her went viral and garnered nationwide attention.