After much delay, the Reynoso Task Force Report on Peppergate has been released! LINK No real surprises here, at least for those of us at UCD who aren't Katehi's technoscience, privatization foot soldiers (that is, nearly every department other than most humanities programs and physics). This report just provides the official proof of what those without our heads up our academically self-interested asses knew already: Katehi is grossly inept at her job. Some highlights: "The Chancellor Bears Primary Responsibility for the Decision to Deploy the Police at 3 p.m. Rather than During the Night or Early Morning, Which is a Tactical Decision Properly Reserved for Police Authorities" and "The Chancellor Bears Primary Responsibility for the Failure to Communicate Her Position that the Police Operation Should Avoid Physical Force." It also appears that the administration and the UCPD were merely indulging in a neoliberal paranoid fantasy within which they saw student protests as part of a global socialist agenda. It is nice to know this, but it is also greatly disconcerting: those with the resources and ambiguous legal authority to amass and employ militarized police equipment calculate their behavior according to capitalist dystopian nightmares rather than even half-hearted assessments of the tactical situations at hand. Hopeful something (i.e. criminal charges, resignations, and substantial reforms) come out of this report. If they can charge 12 peaceful protesters with "obstructing a thoroughfare," maybe the Yolo County DA can press charges for some actual physical assaults?
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