UC Davis Chancellor Katehi Placed On Leave Over 'Missteps'

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - The chancellor of the University of California, Davis has been placed on leave amid an uproar stemming in part from the school's hiring of consultants to improve its image, following a widely criticized protest pepper spraying incident by police.

UC President Janet Napolitano's office announced Wednesday that she is appointing an outside investigator to determine whether the actions of Chancellor Linda Katehi (kah-TAY-hee) have violated university policies. She has been at the post for nearly seven years.

The 62-year-old Katehi came under fire early in her tenure at Davis when campus police officers used pepper spray on seated demonstrators during a November 2011 protest.

Calls for her resignation resurfaced after The Sacramento Bee reported in March that Katehi had accepted a seat on the board of a for-profit college company and earned more than $400,000 as a director for a textbook publisher.