Pepper shower college says sorry for pursuit control

Students were pepper sprayed by campus police in 2011

The chancellor of a university has apologised over the hiring of a PR firm that promised to bury online search results about the pepper spraying of peaceful protesters.

Dr Linda Katehi conceded that UC Davis, California, got an organization "represent considerable authority in what is known as site design improvement". 

Yet, she denied that the organization had looked to "change history". 

Dr Katehi has confronted brings to leave over the 2011 episode and its aftermath. 

Prior this month, the Sacramento Bee daily paper reported that UC Davis employed the PR firm Nevins and Associates on a six-month contract at $15,000 (£10,400) every month. 

The college was trying to manage the response to the episode in 2011 in which understudies who were challenging on the college's grounds, close Sacramento, in California, were pepper-splashed by a grounds cop. 

The paper distributed an archive which it said set out the association's proposed methodology. The report read: "Nevins and Associates is set up to make and execute an internet marking effort intended to tidy up the negative consideration the University of California, Davis, and Chancellor Katehi have gotten identified with the occasions that unfolded in November 2011." 


The archive likewise alluded to "destruction of references to the pepper shower occurrence in indexed lists on Google for the college and the Chancellor" by means of a "forceful and exhaustive online crusade to kill the negative list items".

The chancellor Dr Linda Katehi said "missteps" had occurred on her watch

In an announcement distributed on the college's site this week, Dr Katehi said: "looking back, we ought to have been more watchful in evaluating a portion of the more improbable and absurd extent of-work cases in the composed recommendations of our outside merchants. 

"What may be acknowledged industry metaphor in the private advertising world falls far underneath the elevated requirements of an open foundation of higher learning." 

The Los Angeles Times reported a week ago that the University of California's understudy affiliation had approached Dr Katehi to leave over the news. 


In her announcement, Dr Katehi recognized that an additional $1.6m (£1.1m) had been pumped into the foundation's interchanges spending plan as of late. She refered to cases of the college's acts of kindness and said that any association in its position would look to guarantee those were highlighted.

Related Topics

• University