Brian Nguyen / Reuters file

A UC-Davis police officer pepper-sprays students during their sit-in at an "Occupy UCD" demonstration in Davis, Calif., in this Nov. 18 file photo.

Updated at 1:42 p.m. ET: The University of California has agreed to pay about $1 million to settle a lawsuit filed by UC-Davis students who were pepper-sprayed by campus police during an Occupy-style protest on campus last November.

The settlement also calls for a personal written apology from UC-Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi to each person hit with the spray. 

UC and plaintiffs represented by the American Civil Liberties Union filed the preliminary settlement in federal court in Sacramento on Wednesday, The Associated Press reported.

Under the agreement, which must be approved by a federal judge, the university will pay $30,000 to each of 21 students and former students named in the complaint and an additional $250,000 for their attorneys to split. 

The settlement also calls for the UC to set aside $100,000 to pay other individuals who can prove they were arrested or pepper-sprayed during the Nov. 18, 2011, incident.

Videos and photos taken by witnesses of an officer methodically spraying orange pepper-spray in the faces of nonviolent protesters quickly went viral. Many of the demonstrators were sitting on a campus pathway with arms linked in a protest against tuition hikes and income inequality.

The outcry led to more campus protests, and some called for Katehi to resign.

A task force report released in April blamed the incident on poor communication and planning throughout the campus chain of command, from the chancellor to the pepper-spraying officers.

Read the proposed settlement (.PDF)

The University of California issued this statement in response to news of the proposed settlement:

“The University of California can confirm a preliminary settlement has been reached in the lawsuit regarding the pepper spray incident on the UC Davis quad last November. This settlement, not yet approved by the court, calls for the University of California to pay $30,000 to each of the 21 named plaintiffs and a total of $250,000 to their attorneys. If a federal judge approves the terms, the University also will set aside a maximum of $100,000 to pay up to $20,000 each to individuals who wish to join the class action and can prove they were either arrested or directly pepper-sprayed. Any money paid by UC will come from the university’s General Liability Risk Program, a self-insured fund.”

Fatima Sbeih, one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said in a statement the incident created a divide between students and campus police, The Los Angeles Times reported.

“Since Nov. 18, students have been afraid of the police. The university still needs to work to rebuild students’ trust and this settlement is a step in the right direction,” said Sbeih, who recently graduated with a degree in international studies, according to the Times.

The UC-Davis police officers who doused the protesters won’t face criminal charges. The Yolo County District Attorney’s office said in a statement last week that there was insufficient evidence to prove the use of force was illegal.

John Pike, the police lieutenant who was shown in the videos pepper-spraying the protesters, told The Sacramento Bee he was relieved by the DA’s decision.

Pike was fired on July 31 by the campus police chief who took over the university’s police department after the chief who was in charge last fall, Annette Spicuzza, stepped down under fire.

NBC News' James Eng and The Associated Press contributed to this story.

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A UC Davis task force report released Wednesday strongly condemned a campus officer’s use of pepper spray during an Occupy protest at the university in November, saying that it “should and could have been prevented.”

The incident took place on Nov. 18, at the height of the Occupy movement that had spread to cities and campuses across the country. On that day, UC Davis campus police were ordered to take apart an encampment set up by protesters at the university.

Police officers told investigators that they felt trapped by protesters and used pepper spray to break out. In an now-iconic image from the Occupy movement, campus Police Lt. John Pike walked slowly past a line of crouched students, spraying them with a stream of neon-orange pepper spray.

Photographs and video of the incident went viral and triggered widespread condemnation of the campus police.

Video spreads of UC Davis cops pepper spraying Occupy students

The UC Davis report, which accompanies a 150-page assessment by Kroll, a risk management group based in San Diego, found that the officers’ claims that they were trapped was mostly unfounded.

“On balance, there is little basis supporting Lt. Pike’s belief that he was trapped by the protesters or that his officers were prevented from leaving the Quad,” the report said. “Further, there is little evidence that any protesters attempted to use violence against the police.”

Read the full report

The Kroll report added that UC Davis police are not authorized to use such powerful pepper spray, the MK-9.

“The MK-9 is a higher pressure type of pepper spray than what officers normally carry on their utility belts (MK-4),” the report said.

Nor was Pike trained in using that type of pepper spray, the report continued. It appeared he sprayed the protesters at closer range than six feet, as advised. (Pike refused to be interviewed for the report and remains on leave, as does the chief of UC Davis campus police.) 

The task force, headed by retired state Supreme Court Justice Cruz Reynoso, was commissioned by University of California President Mark G. Yudof. Chancellor Linda Katehi, who heads UC Davis, had asked the president to put together the task force after she came under fire for the pepper spray incident.

The report criticizes Katehi, however, for being vague in her instructions to campus police before they went to take down the encampment.

“The only message communicated to the police was the ambiguous suggestion that the Chancellor and the Provost did not want the police operation ‘to be like Berkeley,’” the report said. At the UC Berkeley campus, police had beaten Occupy protesters with batons.

Video: Occupy movement takes violent turn at Berkeley

The Kroll and Reynoso reports were not released until Wednesday because the police union said that some parts would violate privacy rules, the Los Angeles Times reported. The newspaper reported that Pike has received death threats and that pranksters have orders pizzas to be delivered to his home.

In conclusion, the task force recommended that the University of California evaluate its police forces “to ensure that they reflect the distinct needs of a university community.”

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SAN FRANCISCO - The president of the University of California system said he was "appalled" at images of protesters being doused with pepper spray and plans an assessment of law enforcement procedures on all 10 campuses, as two police officers were placed on administrative leave in the incident.

"Free speech is part of the DNA of this university, and non-violent protest has long been central to our history," UC President Mark G. Yudof said in a statement Sunday in response to the spraying of students sitting passively at UC Davis. "It is a value we must protect with vigilance."

Yudof said it was not his intention to "micromanage our campus police forces," but he said all 10 chancellors would convene soon for a discussion "about how to ensure proportional law enforcement response to non-violent protest."

Protesters from Occupy Sacramento planned to travel to nearby Davis on Monday for a noon rally in solidarity with the students, the group said in a statement.

UC Davis officials refused to identify the two officers who were place on administrative leave but one was a veteran of many years on the force and the other "fairly new" to the department, the school's Police Chief Annette Spicuzza told The Associated Press. She would not elaborate further because of the pending probe.

Videos posted online of the incident clearly show one riot-gear clad officer dousing the line of protesters with spray as they sit with their arms intertwined. Spicuzza told the AP that the second officer was identified during an intense review of several videos.

"We really wanted to be diligent in our research, and during our viewing of multiple videos we discovered the second officer," Spicuzza said. "This is the right thing to do."

Both officers were trained in the use of pepper spray as department policy dictates, and both had been sprayed with it themselves during training, the chief noted.

Meanwhile, UC Davis Chancellor Linda Katehi said she has been inundated with reaction from alumni, students and faculty and would speed up an investigation that was to have taken three months.

"I spoke with students this weekend and I feel their outrage," Katehi said in a statement Sunday.

Katehi also set a 30-day deadline for her school's task force investigating the incident to issue its report. The task force, comprised of students, staff and faculty, will be chosen this week. She earlier had set a 90-day timetable.

She also plans to meet with demonstrators Monday at their general assembly, said her spokeswoman, Claudia Morain.

The UC Davis faculty association called for Katehi's resignation, saying in a Saturday letter there had been a "gross failure of leadership." Katehi has resisted calls for her to quit.

"I am deeply saddened that this happened on our campus, and as chancellor, I take full responsibility for the incident," Katehi said Sunday. "However, I pledge to take the actions needed to ensure that this does not happen again. I feel very sorry for the harm our students were subjected to and I vow to work tirelessly to make the campus a more welcoming and safe place."

The incident reverberated well beyond the university, with condemnations and defenses of police from elected officials and from the wider public on Facebook and Twitter.

"On its face, this is an outrageous action for police to methodically pepper spray passive demonstrators who were exercising their right to peacefully protest at UC Davis," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said in a statement Sunday. "Chancellor Katehi needs to immediately investigate, publically explain how this could happen and ensure that those responsible are held accountable."

The protest Friday was held in support of the overall Occupy Wall Street movement and in solidarity with protesters at the University of California, Berkeley who were jabbed by police with batons on Nov. 9.

Nine students hit by pepper spray were treated at the scene, two were taken to hospitals and later released, university officials said. Ten people were arrested.

Meanwhile Sunday, police in San Francisco, about 80 miles south of Davis, arrested six anti-Wall Street protesters and cleared about 12 tents erected in front of the Federal Reserve Bank.

Across the bay in Oakland, police made no arrests after protesters peacefully left a new encampment set up in defiance of city orders.