Justifiably angry over use of pepper spray on protesters, many in the UC Davis community – alumni, teachers and students – are calling on Chancellor Linda P.B. Katehi to resign.

Those calls are premature. They are an overreaction. They reflect the passions stoked by a stunningly stupid police action that has gone viral, putting UC Davis on the international map for all the wrong reasons. Katehi and UC Davis deserve a more deliberate consideration of her overall leadership and her role in Friday's events before any decision is made on her future.

Katehi is clearly responsible for everything her administration does, and she has accepted responsibility for the incident. But much is still unclear about what Katehi knew and authorized in the chain of events that led police dressed in riot gear to casually pepper-spray a line of students.

Why assault passive protesters with pepper spray when they posed no apparent threat to police or others? Why risk turning a nonviolent situation into a violent one? Why expose students to such a frightening display? Why risk inflaming a protest that seemed to be dying down?

Some commentators have compared the pepper-spraying to police actions at Kent State, which is absurd. Four students died at Kent State. But it's also absurd to reflexively support what the police did, and not inquire how it happened.

As it turns out, multiple entities are engaged in such inquiries. These include the Yolo County District Attorney's Office, the UC Davis Academic Senate, the state Legislature, UC President Mark Yudof and a task force Katehi has created.

Our advice is to speed up the investigations. Yudof and the university community need to better understand Katehi's role in all that occurred leading up to Friday and afterward, and the overall chain of command. The sooner they do, the better they can assess whether Katehi deserves to remain as chancellor and can continue to be an asset to UC Davis.

Katehi and campus officials say she directed the police to peacefully "remove the equipment" and not to create "another Berkeley" situation, in which campus police used batons on protesters. She also says she never would have approved police in riot gear.

That seems to suggest that Katehi delegated general instructions to police, but did not sit down with them and walk through various scenarios, and appropriate responses. If so, that raises serious questions about her management style.

On the other hand, comments by the chancellor and those who have talked to her suggest she was left out of the loop on key decisions. Possibly, several subordinates failed her. That doesn't absolve her of responsibility, but it changes the picture.

Further complicating matters are policies handed down in the UC system following the massacre at Virginia Tech University in 2007, when a gunman killed 32 people and wounded 25 others. Those policies may have tied Katehi's hands.

According to Linda Bisson, the president of the UC Davis Academic Senate, a delay in decision-making at Virginia Tech prompted the UC system to revise its procedures, truncating the chain of command on police actions. Bisson told us she thinks those policies were well intentioned but may be an "overreaction" and are in need of review.

Up until Friday, Katehi had been an impressive chancellor for UC Davis. We haven't agreed with her on everything, but she came here with an inclusive spirit, an ambitious vision and an international reputation that energized UC Davis and the entire region. From what we can tell, most of the university's faculty continues to support her, with the caveat that so much is unknown.

Ultimately, Yudof and the UC Davis community will have to decide if Katehi can continue to lead effectively, and Katehi will have to make that decision herself. The stakes have never been larger for this campus and its future.

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