Better late than never: UC Davis chancellor placed on leave pending investigation

Although Chancellor Linda Katehi should have been sacked in 2011 after the famed pepper-spray incident at the University of California, Davis, University President Janet Napolitano finally recognizes that Katehi may be unfit to lead an esteemed university. Here’s what the Los Angeles Times now reports:

Katehi … may have made “material misstatements” when she told the UC president and the news media that she had no knowledge of contracts that UC Davis officials made with social media firms, according to Napolitano’s letter.

The Sacramento Bee reported that Davis officials paid the firms at least $175,000 to improve the image of Katehi and the campus, in part by burying negative publicity about the 2011 pepper-spraying incident.

In fact, Napolitano wrote, documents indicate Katehi had “multiple interactions” with one vendor and efforts to set up meetings with others.

The straw that apparently broke the camel’s back was the disclosure by the Sacramento Bee of the high-dollar public relations contracts aimed not at boosting the reputation of UC Davis but instead “scrubbing” the Internet of negative comments about the institution or Katehi.

That disclosure prompted the 2011 pepper spray incident to become an even bigger news story. More in my earlier post.