The University of California Davis will be giving $30,000 to each of the 21 students who were pepper sprayed by campus police last year. The student’s will also receive a formal letter of apology from University Chancellor Linda Katehi.
The SF Gate reports that the The American Civil Liberties Union sued the University of California on behalf of the students earlier this year. A settlement was submitted to a federal court earlier this morning. It still has to be approved by a judge.
Fatima Sbeih, one of the student’s that was pepper-sprayed while participating in a protest on campus, said:
“I want to make sure that nothing like this happens again. The university still needs to work to rebuild students’ trust and this settlement is a step in the right direction.”
ACLU attorney Michael Risher added:
“If the First Amendment means anything, it’s that students should be able to exercise their free speech-rights on their college campus without being afraid of police violence. What happened on Nov. 18 was among the worst examples of police violence against student demonstrators that we’ve seen in a generation. The settlement should be a wake-up call for other universities and police departments.”
The settlement states that the school will pay a total of $730,000 to the 21 students who were pepper-sprayed on the UC Davis campus. The school will also pay $250,000 to the ACLU. The ACLU will also be working with campus officials to change campus policies in regard to student protests.
You can watch the video of the UC Davis pepper spraying incident here .
