Almost 15000 people have already signed the petition calling on Chancellor Linda Katehi to resign in disgrace over her decision to send in the riot police on peaceful students using civil disobedience. (You can sign it to).
Our own clarknt67 (aka Scott Wooledge) started the petition this morning, and it has gone viral.
I thought it might be interesting to sample some of the reasons petition signers gave for demanding the Chancellor's resignation in their comments, and show you a few of them. So here's some of the ones that struck me as particularly worthy of reproducing. Each paragraph is a different signatory's opinion.
I was a student who was pepper sprayed down my throat. I did have persistant dry heaving caughs for the rest of the day I woke up this morning with a harsh burning in my mouth, nose, and throat. You, personally, have hurt my body Katehi, but you can not hurt my spirit. Resign so that I may continue in my studies in peace!
I am a United States Marine Corps. Infantry veteran and a student at UC Davis. The brutality of the police was cowardly, unAmerican and completely antithetical to my beloved Constitution.
Because fascism and brutality are not among the core values of UC Davis.
Pepper spray is banned for use in war by Article I.5 of the Chemical Weapons Convention which bans the use of all riot control agents in warfare whether lethal or less-than-lethal. I demand that Police Officer Lt. John Pike be terminated immediately and that he be permanently barred from employment on all UC and CSU campuses for the rest of his life.
I have been a professor at UC Berkeley and then Univ Oregon for 25 years and this sickens me. Shame on you for abusing your non-violent students this way.
Teaching students that civil disobedience and democratic protest will be met by violence, by ramming pepper spray into their faces and down their throats, is a perversion of everything that universities stand for. It's an unforgivable betrayal of trust. If students are bombing things, you call in the cops. If students are occupying a patch of ground, or a building, you TALK to them, even if they stay there for a year. If they are not violent you do NOT use violence.
I'm grateful that my two college-aged children do NOT attend my alma mater. As a UC Davis alumnus, I am deeply ashamed of Dr. Kathei and her pathetic justification for the criminal abuse of peacefully protesting students. Her response to this incident is leadership FAIL. Dr. Nathan Brown is right: she is obviously unfit for the job.
You have turned my alma mater into a national disgrace. Shame on you.
The statement in defense of police behavior was, if possible, even more outrageous than the behavior it was supposed to defend. The protesters were not, in any way, shape or form undermining health, safety, or goals of the UC Davis community. Their message was the reason why they were the object of police violence. This attitude is incompatible with the US constitution; a fortiori, it is incompatible with the mission of a university, especially of a public one.
You authorized force against peaceful protesters. This was deeply wrong, betraying the ideals of a university's tradition of higher thought and action. You should be a steward of the young, not their attacker.
I intended to apply to UC Davis this winter for graduate school. I will not be applying now. I cannot learn or teach at an institution so willing to permit and condone such brutality. Not only would I feel unsafe, I would feel ashamed.
My Grandfather was an honorable police officer for over 30 years who earned the nickname Pappy Zillmann in our community. He NEVER ever behaved like this with anyone he came into contact with, ever. Behavior like this makes the job of a police officer more dangerous for all of those who do the job with class, respect, and professionalism. I sign in remembrance of his belief in 'protect and serve.'
Because my taxes pay her salary, and I would rather they didn't.
I think the only thing that is going to stop the entire University of California system from erupting immediately over the Chancellor's incredible display of callousness and further lack of sane response is that it will be Thanksgiving Holiday very shortly.
But what is going to happen come November 28th?
9:06 PM PT: Send your own comment directly to the Chancellor