UC Davis paid tons of cash in attempt to make this pepper spray image disappear from the web
Money well spent?
The University of California, Davis paid $175,000 to get a contractor to erase negative stories about them on the Internet that stemmed from a 2011 pepper spraying incident on campus, according to new documents released to The Sacramento Bee.
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The school was trying to boost its image after a 2011 incident in which several police officers pepper-sprayed students involved in an Occupy protest.
Some of that money was also allocated toward bolstering the image of Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi, who was the target of many protesters demanding her resignation after the incident.
Contractors taught UC Davis officials about how Google search results work, so the university could better filter out the negative press that rose to the top when someone searched for the university.
The school's communications budget also shot up from $2.93 million in 2009 to $5.47 million last year, an increase of $2.54 million.
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Colin is Mashable's US & World Reporter. He previously interned at Foreign Policy magazine and The American Prospect. Colin is a graduate from Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. When he's not at Mashable, you can most likely find him eating or playing some kind of sport.
