The chancellor of the University of California, Davis, who was placed on administrative leave amid allegations that she used university money to eliminate negative online search results about the institution, resigned on Tuesday after an investigation found that she had violated several university policies.
The chancellor, Linda P. B. Katehi, courted controversy over a series of purported actions, including the use of university funds to suppress the search results after a 2011 episode in which campus police officers used pepper spray against seated protesters, many of them students.
When Ms. Katehi was placed on administrative leave in April, Janet Napolitano, the president of the University of California system and a former secretary of Homeland Security, said that the university was investigating the truthfulness of Ms. Katehi’s accounts of her involvement with social media contracts, as well as questions about the campus’s employment and compensation of some of her immediate family members.
“The investigation is now concluded, and it found numerous instances where Chancellor Katehi was not candid either with me, the press, or the public; that she exercised poor judgment; and violated multiple university policies,” Ms. Napolitano said in a statement on Tuesday.
Under the terms of her contract, Ms. Katehi, who was named chancellor in August 2009, will become a full-time faculty member.
Ms. Katehi and her lawyer argued that the investigation’s findings largely exonerated her of the most serious accusations.
“I am grateful that there are no material findings regarding nepotism, conflicts, financial mismanagement or personal gain, and that I may continue to work hard within the academic mission knowing that my integrity has been exonerated on these issues,” Ms. Katehi wrote in a letter of resignation.
The report concluded that Ms. Katehi had “not exercised improper influence over or offered favorable treatment to” her son and daughter-in-law, both of whom work for the university. It did find, however, that her statements with regard to hiring a social media consultant after the 2011 episode “were misleading at best or untruthful at worst.”
“To say she has problems with conduct, candor and judgment is an understatement,” a university spokeswoman, Dianne Klein, said in an email.
This year, The Sacramento Bee reported that the university had paid consultants at least $175,000 to remove negative online postings in the wake of the 2011 pepper spray episode. That revelation prompted several state lawmakers and Ms. Napolitano to urge Ms. Katehi to resign. She was placed on leave after ignoring those requests, Ms. Napolitano said Tuesday.
The university plans to immediately conduct a national search for Ms. Katehi’s replacement.