UC Davis Chancellor Placed on Paid Leave

By NICK CAHILL

SACRAMENTO (CN) — The beleaguered chancellor of the University of California – Davis was placed on paid administrative leave Wednesday following reports that the school paid more than $175,000 to clear its social media reputation.

Lawmakers and UC Davis students have clamored for Linda P.B. Katehi’s removal for weeks after a stream of controversies were revealed surrounding her involvement with a textbook publisher and large University raises given to her son and daughter-in-law.

University of California President Janet Napolitano said the suspension was due to the “serious and troubling” nature of the accusations and that an outside investigator will be hired to conduct an investigation prior to the start of the 2016-17 academic year.

“Information has recently come to light that raises serious questions about whether Chancellor Katehi may have violated several University of California policies, including questions about the campus’s employment and compensation of some of the chancellor’s immediate family members,” Napolitano said in a statement late Wednesday.

The suspension comes after a series of public relations mishaps surrounding Katehi and the University’s handling of a 2011 incident where student protestors were pepper-sprayed by campus police officers. Documents obtained by the Sacramento Bee through a California Public Records Act request revealed that the University paid consultants more than $175,000 to scrub its online image on search engines such as Google in wake of the highly-publicized incident.

Katehi has also been scrutinized for sitting on the board of a private textbook publisher and the for-profit university, DeVry Education Group, which is being sued by the Federal Trade Commission for lying about graduate employment rates.

Katehi become chancellor in 2009 and her attorney called the suspension “entirely unjustified.” She cancelled several local radio interviews and public appearances this week.

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[Source]: Courthouse News Service