The young photographer targeted by an overzealous professor during a protest at the University of Missouri this week said the teacher needs to brush up on the First Amendment.

“She did say that she was sorry, and we are trying to establish how sincere her apology was,” said Mark Schierbecker, the 22-year-old student. “I got the feeling that she didn’t quite understand the gravity of the situation.”

In a video shot by Schierbecker that has since gone viral, assistant professor Melissa Click confronts him and calls for some “muscle” to remove him.

Click, who received her doctorate at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and has studied “Twilight,” Lady Gaga, Martha Stewart and Thomas the Tank Engine, warned journalists to stay away from a protest Monday as the students sought a “safe space.”

Protesters had just pushed a student photographer working for ESPN back from the encampment when Click told Schierbecker he had to get lost, too, the video shows.

“You need to get out,” she repeated, grabbing his camera at one point. “All right. Hey, who wants to help me get this reporter out of here? I need some muscle over here. Help me get him out. Who’s going to help me?”

Schierbecker told Click the quad was public property.

Click put her hand over Schierbecker’s lens and said: “Yeah, I know. That’s a really good one. I’m a communications faculty, and I really get that argument.”

In her apology to “the MU campus community and journalists at large,” Click said she regrets the “language and strategies I used” and had learned much about “humanity and humility.”

Schierbecker told the Herald he didn’t expect the push-back.

“The level of hostility I saw the other day was not what I expected to take place and not what I expected of this university,” he said. “It’s very connected with the administration of this university, which has taken a very hardline stance against free speech on campus.”

Do I accept the apology? No. The public is owed an apology, not me. — Mark Schierbecker (@Schierbecker) November 11, 2015

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

The university stressed that Click had only a courtesy appointment to the journalism school — a post she resigned from last night, the dean of the department announced on Twitter.

Click did not return calls for comment.

John M. Donnelly, chairman of the National Press Club’s press freedom committee, told the Herald he was puzzled by Click’s actions.

“This kind of thing — worrying that the reporters are not going to tell the story in a friendly way and limiting access, saying, no you can’t take pictures. This is the kind of thing dictators do — not liberal protesters,” he said.

The University of Missouri protests over strained race relations have resulted in the school president and chancellor resigning.