SLOW TO REACT … since those dramatic images of peaceful UC Davis protesters being pepper-sprayed by a UCD police lieutenant hit the Internet and the airwaves last Friday, Chancellor Linda Katehi says she has heard from “an overwhelming number of students, faculty, staff and alumni from around the country.” … well, she’s about to hear from one more …

As an alum and a longtime community member who remembers the day when there were more tractors on campus than bicycles, I have always been rightly proud of my alma mater … but like so many others the chancellor has heard from in the past few days, I was shocked, outraged, sick-to-my-stomach and frankly embarrassed not only by the pepper-spraying itself, but by the institutional response to it …

They say first impressions are the ones that stay with you, and my first impression was that this was easily the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen happen on this normally peaceful campus … and while the chancellor early on allowed that images of the pepper-spraying were “chilling,” she didn’t immediately condemn them … that was a critical mistake …

I realize those in authority are cautious with their public statements in cases like this for all sorts of reasons … liability comes to mind … a rush to judgment before all the facts are in comes to mind … innocent until proven guilty comes to mind … and yet, as these sickening images were played over and over and over again, here and all across the country, most of us reached the inescapable conclusion that this was a gross abuse of power by the UCD officer in question …

I’ve watched that video at least a dozen times and there are simply no mitigating circumstances that can justify his actions … this was a “peaceful” protest in every good meaning of that word … and this was the time for the chancellor to be on the right side of history by immediately condemning the pepper-spraying as the outrageous act that it was …

“Chilling” might have been an apt description, but it fell far short of a clear and concise statement that this should not have happened in this instance and should never again happen in any similar instances on the UC Davis campus … pepper spray can be a useful law enforcement tool under certain circumstances … this was not one of them …

BETTER LATE THAN NEVER … the chancellor did much better in her second bite at the apple on Sunday, putting two of the officers involved on administrative leave and taking “full responsibility” for the incident … she then followed that by placing the police chief on administrative leave … when she addressed students on the Quad Monday at lunchtime, she appeared shaken to her core, her voice cracking as she addressed a massive throng, many of whom had just moments earlier been demanding her resignation …

She had little to offer in her brief remarks, other than an apology and a statement that the entire university community needed to work together to solve the current crisis … whether this was a sincere mea culpa or simply a CYA action in response to the many thousands of calls for her resignation will be determined by the chancellor’s actions to this crisis in the days and weeks ahead … if she survives the crisis at all …

Earlier, Katehi had noted: “I spoke with students this weekend and I feel their outrage.” … then she added: “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 that this does not happen again. I feel very 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.” …

Fair enough … but at this point, those are only words … whether they are rich with promise or merely empty remains to be seen …

SHOULD THE CHANCELLOR RESIGN? … while Chancellor Katehi’s initial response to this incident was woefully inadequate — some would say that’s because she ordered the very action that led to those “chilling” images — at this point, calls for her resignation are premature … her actual role in what led up to the pepper-spraying incident is yet to be determined … but the ball is now clearly in her court … she can lead us out of this mess to a hopefully brighter day or she can simply hope that memories will be short and we’ll be back to business as usual in no time at all …

I’m sure this has been an incredibly sobering lesson for a woman who arrived here with high expectations, perhaps too high given the enormous popularity of the man she succeeded … she has been aggressive in hiring people who share her vision and relentless in her desire to take UC Davis to the very highest level of academic achievement … she’s a hands-on administrator who has her fingers in a great number of pies …

No doubt she was blindsided by the activities of the past week and must now realize that the many initiatives she has launched on campus will be severely compromised if she can’t steer the good ship UC Davis out of this present crisis … only time — and the chancellor’s actions from here on out — will tell …

RUDE KNOWS NO BOUNDARIES … they say power corrupts, and that was certainly in evidence during Monday’s raucous rally on the UC Davis Quad … make no mistake, at this place and at this moment, the student organizers of the rally were the ones with the power, just as the UCD police had been the ones with the power Friday afternoon … and while the speakers were fiery and cut eerily out of a central casting mold for those of us who remember our campus days from the 1960s, the crowd was certainly peaceful, if loud …

However, power creates arrogance as well, and that arrogance was hard to ignore as Chancellor Katehi was forced to wait a long, long while before being allowed to address the throng … finally, as the crowd began to rhythmically chant “let her speak, let her speak,” the MC of the event, feigning ignorance, asked “Who do you mean? Are you talking about Chancellor Katehi?” … and then she added “She’s on the stack” of speakers who were lined up to deliver remarks … another organizer quickly grabbed the microphone and added “She’s not special. She can wait like everyone else.” …

Fine, but the crowd clearly wanted to hear what the chancellor had to say, and after a dozen or so speakers had fired up the audience while the chancellor waited in the wings, this was nothing more than outright rudeness … hardly a way to get a dialogue going, but I guess after the events of Friday afternoon, no one was in much of a mood for dialogue with the chancellor anyway …

OVER THE TOP … English professor Nathan Brown worked the crowd to a fever pitch as he demanded over and over again that Chancellor Katehi resign … he did this while Katehi was standing just south of the stage, waiting her turn to speak …

And while the calls for resignation were greeted enthusiastically by many among the thousands gathered on the chilly day, Brown added a second — seemingly strange — demand that all police forces be ordered permanently off UC campuses … that one didn’t have as many takers … after all, anytime you have a community of nearly 60,000 people living and working together, you might occasionally need a police force to help keep the peace … that the police were wrong in this instance is beyond dispute, but to disband the police force altogether is just plain silliness … it might make a great punch line given the passion surrounding the horrendous events of last Friday afternoon, but no one is likely to take Brown’s second demand seriously …

However, his first demand — that the chancellor resign — continues to be the subject of heated debate … I strongly doubt she will resign voluntarily — even now, she sincerely believes she’s good for this campus — but whether or not higher-ups will choose to pull the plug on her brief tenure as chancellor is very much an open question …

— Reach Bob Dunning at [email protected]

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