I know very little about the HR policies of police departments, including at University of California Davis, but I knew a few things Conor Friedersdorf did not when writing a screed at The Atlantic about employee record privacy tied to the pepper-spraying cop. Friedersdorf is outraged that the employment status of Lieutenant John Pike is not a public record and that, at least from what Friedersdorf understands, the public inquiry and report cannot be used as part of an internal police investigation and personnel decisions. There is also a definite aftertaste of voyeurism in the Friedersdorf piece: he writes as if he wished Pike had been fired in public (after a decent interval of a few weeks).
Generally, the way one addresses personnel issues affects far more than the single employee involved. That is why process matters a great deal when someone is being investigated, sanctioned, or let go — loads of colleagues are going to see how something happened, including colleagues who don’t know the full story. If someone is a raging jackass, it is possible that nothing you do in the process is going to be seen as inappropriate, but there is often quite a bit of sympathy even for colleagues who are known to have serious problems on the job. It’s part of human nature, and I’d much rather have people be sympathetic with colleagues than not.
So one does not pillory rank-and-file employees in public, not even John Pike. One discourages gossip about employee discipline and terminations. ((It’s important to do this without violating the right of people to talk about conditions at work. There are a few ways to finesse that, but that’s beyond the scope of this post.)) And one does not try to do an end-run around existing rules. From my experience as an elected union officer and as someone who has been in supervisory roles, I have yet to see a case where these basic principles did not apply.
I do not know if Friedersdorf is factually accurate in asserting that public reports cannot be used in internal police investigations in California. I doubt it, but it could be possible. But I know that you have to separate the policy issues from our horror at the behavior of UC Davis police. There are plenty of policies to discuss in connection with the pepper-spraying of peaceful protesters, but neither Conor Friedersdorf nor I know whether the protection of uniformed police employee records and investigation procedures is one of them. ((I have read the version of the California Police Officers Bill of Rights that Inside Higher Ed has on its server. I don’t see what Friedersdorf is claiming in it.))