The University of California finds itself on the receiving end of global public outrage from the videos of campus police beating passive student protesters and spraying them with pepper spray.
This is the man ultimately in charge, President Mark Yudof.
This is his reaction to the public outrage.
UC President Yudof convenes chancellors over police use of force
Yudof met all 10 UC chancellors via a teleconference meeting, during which he reiterated that he was appalled by images of students being doused with pepper spray at UC Davis and jabbed with batons at UC Berkeley, according to a press release. He called for actions to be taken to examine use of force at campuses, according to the release.
“We cannot let this happen again,” Yudof said at the meeting, according to the release.
Oh my goodness, he's appalled. There are reasons to be skeptical over the prospect that the shock of these incidents has sent Pres. Yudof to bed with a cold cloth.
Yudof has been president of UC since 2008. In 2009 there was a wave of student protest in response to tuition increases. Here's a video report form Amy Goodman detailing some of those events.
There were incidents then of police using batons to beat seated students at Berkeley and pepper spray was used at Davis. There were objections raised over the the brutality of the campus police methods then. They did not take on global proportions. In the best of bureaucratic traditions Yudof formed a task force to study the matter.
The Real Story Behind UC Davis
In the aftermath of the 2009 protests, and the complaints that came in, UCLA Chancellor Gene Block launched an independent panel to examine circumstances surrounding clashes between police and students, much like the review Yudof is calling for now in response to the UC Davis incident.
In December, 2010, 13 months after the UC Regents protests, Block released the findings of the report. The principle finding of the report found
“no persuasive evidence of excessive uses of force or other overreactions by the police.”
Youdof and the chancellors would seem to be engaged in yet another exercise in kicking the can down the road. They are making the appropriate noises and betting that the wrath of the public will soon blow over allowing them to get back to their real business, privatizing what once upon a time was the greatest PUBLIC university in the world.