University of California-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi says she won’t resign despite a firestorm of controversy over university police officers dousing students with pepper spray over the weekend.
“I really feel confident at this point the university needs me,” Katehi said this morning on ABC‘s Good Morning America.”There are so many critical issues to be addressed and we really need to start the healing process and move forward.”
Calls for Katehi’s resignation have come from both students and faculty since the violent incident, video of which shows as many as 20 students, all passively seated throughout the protest, getting blasted point blank by pepper spray.
Two of the protesters were taken to the hospital. Ten people were arrested, nine of them students.
Two police officers, including campus police chief Annette Spicuzza, have been placed on indefinite leave.
Students organized again on Saturday night for a peaceful protest as Chancellor Katehi was heading to her vehicle.
Campus police, who were wearing riot gear during the standoff with students, were ordered to dismantle the UC Davis Occupy encampment because camping on college grounds is not allowed.
“The situation that was building up was becoming a concern for us, the members of the community,” Katehi said this morning. “The decision was not to disperse the students but to dismantle the equipment for the encampment, and there was an effort for many, many days.”
The UC-Davis faculty association called for Katehi’s resignation Saturday, writing in a letter there had been a “gross failure of leadership.”
Admitting that the university she leads is at a “critical position,” Katehi said she is willing to work with all sides in the fierce debate over whether or not the police exercised excessive force.
“I’m working with the greater faculty body,” she said. “I really want to work with members of our community, the staff and the faculty to take our institution out of this crisis.”
Katehi has said she next plans to meet with demonstrators today at their general assembly.
She also issued a formal statement on the matter last night, which you can read below…
More in the videos above and below
November 20, 2011
Dear Alumni and Friends,
Friday was not a day that would make anyone on our campus proud; indeed the events of the day need to guide us forward as we try to make our campus a better place of inquiry, debate, and even dissent. This past week our campus was a site of week-long peaceful demonstrations during which students were able to express their concerns about many issues facing higher education, the University of California, our campus, our nation, and the world as a whole. Those events involved multiple rallies in the Quad and an occupation of Mrak Hall which ended peacefully a day later.
However, the events on Friday were a major deviation from that trend. In the aftermath of the troubling events we experienced, I will attempt to provide a summary of the incident with the information now available to me and the steps we will follow going forward. After a week of peaceful exchange and debate, on Thursday a group of protestors including UC Davis students and other non-UC Davis affiliated individuals established an encampment of about 25 tents on the Quad. The group was reminded that while the university provides an environment for students to participate in rallies and express their concerns and frustrations through different forums, university policy does not allow such encampments on university grounds.
On Thursday, the group stayed overnight despite repeated reminders by university staff that their encampment violated university policies and they were requested to disperse. On Friday morning, the protestors were provided with a letter explaining university policies and reminding them of the opportunities the university provides for expression. Driven by our concern for the safety and health of the students involved in the protest, as well as other students on our campus, I made the decision not to allow encampments on the Quad during the weekend, when the general campus facilities are locked and the university staff is not widely available to provide support.
During the early afternoon hours and because of the request to take down the tents, many students decided to dismantle their tents, a decision for which we are very thankful. However, a group of students and non-campus affiliates decided to stay. The university police then came to dismantle the encampment. The events of this intervention have been videotaped and widely distributed. As indicated in various videos, the police used pepper spray against the students who were blocking the way. The use of pepper spray as shown on the video is chilling to us all and raises many questions about how best to handle situations like this.
To this effect, I am forming a task force comprised of faculty, students and staff to review the events and provide to me a thorough report within 30 days. The task force will be chosen this week and convene immediately to begin their work. As part of this, a process will be designed that allows members of the community to express their views on this matter. In addition, I will hold a series of meetings and forums with students, faculty and staff to listen to their concerns and hear their ideas for restoring civil discourse to the campus. In the interim, two UC Davis police officers involved in the incident have been placed on administrative leave following their use of pepper spray.
Related to current policies, I am asking the office of Administrative and Resource Management and the office of Student Affairs to review our policies in relation to encampments of this nature and consider whether our existing policies reflect the needs of the students at this point in time. If our policies do not allow our students enough flexibility to express themselves, then we need to find a way to improve these policies and make them more effective and appropriate.
Our campus is committed to providing a safe environment for all to learn freely and practice their civil rights of freedom of speech and expression. At the same time, our campus has the responsibility to ensure the safety of all others who use the same spaces and rely on the same facilities, tools, environments and processes to practice their freedoms to work and study.
I spoke with students this weekend and I feel their outrage. I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident. I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure this does not happen again. I feel sorry for the harm our students were subjected to and I vow to work tirelessly to make the campus a more welcoming and safe place.
Sincerely,
Linda P.B. Katehi
Chancellor
Related articles
- UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi Denies Resignation, Says the ‘University … – ABC News (abcnews.go.com)
- UC Davis chancellor Katehi issues statement on police pepper-spraying of student protesters (boingboing.net)
- UC Davis pepper spray incident goes viral (csmonitor.com)
Get Blippitt via RSS feed, Facebook, Twitter, Google+,
and be sure to get our Daily Email Broadcast.
