UC Davis Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi came under fire later last year after UC police casually pepper sprayed peaceful student protestors in the face during the height of the Occupy movements.

Faculty, students and community members alike called for her resignation during the fallout, but she was adamant that she would not step down.

An investigation, headed by retired state Supreme Court Justice and a former UC Davis law professor Cruz Reynoso, will not be finished until early next month, according to UC officials.

But now UC Davis faculty voted by a large margin to support the continued leadership of Katehi, officials said Friday evening.

In an online referendum, professors voted 697 to 312 to defeat a no-confidence measure that censured Katehi’s handling of the controversial police action, according to an announcement by the campus Academic Senate. The motion sought to link her directly to the pepper-spraying and contended that she had failed “to act effectively to resolve the resulting crisis.”

In November, Katehi said she had authorized police to remove the Occupy protesters’ tents from the campus but not to use the pepper spray in the manner they did. The spraying, of course, garnered national attention and outrage through an online video of the event.

The officers involved were given paid leave, and Katehi tried to apologize to a crowd of protestors, but also hid from them for three hours prior to a press conference “fearing violence.” The gathered protestors simply sat or stood in eerie silence as she walked past.  

A rival measure that supported Katehi while also condemning the pepper-spraying passed by a narrower margin, 586 to 408. That resolution praised Katehi for improving the campus’ academic stature since taking office in 2009 and noted that she apologized for the pepper-spraying and has moved to prevent similar actions in the future.  

The UC Davis faculty also approved, 635 to 343, another resolution that condemned “both the dispatch of police and use of excessive force” at the November protests.

Nearly 2,700 professors were eligible to vote on the nonbinding resolutions; more than half of them chose not to participate.

Katehi declined to comment Friday about the vote, a campus spokeswoman said.