The work 's narrative centers on the 2011 UC Davis pepper spray incident in which campus police used pepper spray to disperse an Occupy-aligned student demonstration against rising tuition . Working backwards , Doyle elaborates the Davis incident 's underlying causes . As a result of Title IX , American public universities are legally required to maintain campuses which do not discriminate against students on the basis of sex . This entails that they maintain campuses free of sexual violence — under threat of losing government funding — per the Dear Colleague letter issued by the United States Department of Education to public university administrators on April 4 , 2011 . In Doyle 's account , UC Davis administrator Linda Katehi feared that the demonstration would attract nearby Occupy Oakland protestors from outside the student body . If the demonstration had been allowed to encamp overnight , Katehi believed that Occupy Oakland protesters might have sex with students , possibly resulting in a sexual assault on campus . Based upon this concern motivated by Title IX requirements , Katehi insisted that campus police disperse the protest before nightfall , resulting in the pepper spray incident : Throughout the book , Doyle also treats several other sensationalized incidents pertaining to campus security , including the retracted Rolling Stone article '' A Rape on Campus '' , the suicide of Tyler Clementi , the UCLA Taser incident , the Penn State child sex abuse scandal , and the 2014 Isla Vista killings , examining each from a feminist perspective .
2014 Isla Vista killings
2014 Isla Vista killings
Jennifer Doyle