FOIAzona

The University of Arizona isn’t unique among higher education institutions. It’s a progressive college in the middle of a progressive city, and its day-to-day operations live up to the expectation.

A plethora of department-specific DEI committees, omnipresent pronouns in faculty email signatures, and land acknowledgments at the bottom of every university web page are only some of the features that UA wears on its sleeve.

So, when the university’s left-leaning governance killed an anti-Semitism resolution in May 2024, I wasn’t too surprised—but I wanted to know more. What I didn’t expect was a year-long FOIA fight and thousands in legal fees. Now that we finally have the records, though, I understand why it tried to block their release.

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You can find a user-friendly PDF version of this document here. The full batch of FOIA records is available upon request. Please note that I lightly redacted certain sender and recipient contact information in the emails cited below; any other redactions were made by the university.

Update – The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board published a write-up about the investigation here. You can listen to my radio interview about it here.

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The series of events, detailed in nearly 1,000 pages of exclusive records obtained by FOIAzona, began two days after October 7, 2023, when UA president Bobby Robbins issued a university-wide email in no uncertain terms: “I have been horrified at news of the terrorist attacks in Israel that reached us over the weekend,” he said. He highlighted his team’s work to confirm the safety of students and faculty in the Middle East and directed students toward counseling options, procedures for reporting threats, and resources from the University of Arizona Hillel.

Robbins issued a second statement days later again condemning “the horrendous acts of terrorism by Hamas in Israel targeted at innocent civilians … Let’s call it what it is: antisemitic hatred, murder, and a complete atrocity.” He specifically called out Students for Justice in Palestine for “endorsing the actions of Hamas in Israel, which are, of course, antithetical to our university’s values.”

It was a moment of rare moral clarity, but the sentiment wasn’t shared internally.

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Leila Hudson, Chair of the Faculty and an Associate Professor in the School of Middle Eastern and North African Studies, received an email the following day from an associate—whose name, like most others, was questionably redacted by UA’s FOIA team—accusing Robbins of spreading “smears” and “chilling SJP dissent.” The associate said they had been “texting with” Jewish Voices for Peace about an SJP protest and wanted to report the president’s actions to Palestine Legal. The Chair thanked her associate “so much for emailing him” and noted, “I am working on a statement as well.”

Hudson issued her statement countering Robbins on October 13 after being “asked by faculty members to condemn … Hamas’ slaughter and kidnapping of Israeli civilian non-combatants,” which, in fairness, she did—just not without some hard-to-stomach whataboutism one week after the live-streamed mass-murder and kidnapping of innocent Israelis.

“I condemn with equal force the illegal violent collective punishment being visited upon the civilian population of the besieged Gaza Strip,” she wrote. “War crimes and terrorism do not justify war crimes and terrorism.”

Praise for Hudson’s counter-statement flowed into her inbox from colleagues. One faculty member thanked the Chair “so much … for this” and said that “I was troubled by the President’s statement yesterday.” A second emphasized the “large number of Saudi, UAE, and Yemen students in my large Gen ed Classes,” some of whom had “reached out to me already yesterday, upset over President Robbins letter/response.” A third praised her as “courageous” and later mentioned ‘Kochs Off Campus’ would be attending an upcoming faculty meeting. Many similar emails followed.

Hudson confided to one colleague that she “initially had a much longer statement including comparisons to ISIS tactics, Syria, Iran, post 2007 Gaza status, etc. but cut them out for rhetorical reasons to try and find a message that would bring people into dialogue.”

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Over the next few weeks, left-wing protests and propaganda rained down on campus.

In an email to faculty, a student group called the Coalition of Black Students and Allies applauded October 7 as “a powerful emblem of Palestinian resistance” against “apartheid” and criticized Robbins’ “Zionist rhetoric.” The campus arm of the National Lawyers Guild also emailed faculty members about the ongoing “genocide” committed by the “Zionist, settler colonial project that refers to itself as Israel,” along with a leaflet for a ‘Free Palestine: Know Your Protest Rights’ training day.

Similar messaging was shared internally. Hudson forwarded an “interesting” Al Jazeera article about “genocide” and “white feminists” to Chief Inclusion Officer Jennifer Hatcher. A group of “conscientious members of the University of Arizona community”—whose names, again, were questionably redacted by UA—asked John Senseney, a member of the university’s DEI committee, to join a letter demanding the institution sever its ties to Raytheon for playing a role in Gaza’s “civilian population … being exterminated.”

Another professor forwarded a fundraising plea from Amnesty International about the “occupied West Bank,” with another writing to Robbins directly, “The military occupation must end.”

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The chaos ramped up by winter.

At a November 6 Faculty Senate meeting, Hudson spoke to attendees about the “genocide” in Palestine and sympathized with protesters “who speak out for Palestinian rights, against occupation, against the IDF attacks on Gaza, and settler violence in the West Bank, and against U.S. policy that supports and sustains them,” according to video obtained of her remarks. Three days later, the university’s interim provost notified colleagues about an upcoming ‘Walkout for Palestine’ on campus.

Then, shortly after, the @IsraelWarRoom Twitter account published audio of two UA professors claiming that Hamas is not a “terrorist” group, just a “resistance group,” and that allegations of anti-Semitism stemmed from “people … not understanding the difference between being Jewish and being Zionist or Israeli.” Those professors, Rebecca Lopez and Rebecca Zapien, were briefly suspended—that is, until the pushback began.

United Campus Workers of Arizona circulated an open letter (all signers redacted, again) accusing their critics of “retaliation and a public smear campaign.” A participant (also redacted, again) at a campus sit-in supporting the professors urged UA’s Faculty Senate to track down “who performed the classroom recording” and “how it was transmitted” to the “nameless, faceless ‘IsraelWarRoom’” account, with Laurie Brand, a professor at the University of Southern California, similarly suggesting to Hudson that the Middle East Studies Association “look into” the situation.

Hudson, for her part, was a fierce defender of the professors.

Publicly, she sat for interviews with the Arizona Republic and Skyview Networks, among other outlets, including a Reuters reporter who wanted to know about the “risk” professors face “ending up on sites like Canary Mission.”

Privately, she dismissed the “decontextualized, weaponized snippets” of audio footage and emphasized the importance of teaching students about “the causes and motivations of October 7^th.”

In response to an email criticizing the disciplinary action—part of a larger unsolicited rant about the “relentless” growth of Israel’s “apartheid state”—the Chair said, “I appreciate your views and outrage more than you might think.”

And, when the professors were reinstated in December, the Chair wrote to them in a small group chat, “It’s been a privilege to stand with you in this harrowing episode.”

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At one point, the shift in tone on campus started to become a legal liability.

Around time of the professors’ instatement, Hudson sent out her inaugural “State of the Faculty” message announcing plans to “establish a Campus Climate response team to document and intervene in incidents that do not meet the threshold of credible threats of violence.”

Citing the “[c]asual anti-Palestinian, anti-Arab, and anti-Muslim hateful rhetoric and a spate of violent Islamophobic hate crimes around the country,” she issued a stark warning to colleagues on the pro-Israel side of the debate: Any “accusations” that certain political positions—such as “calls for a ceasefire in Gaza or an end to US unconditional support for Israel”—are “in and of themselves, essentially pro-Hamas, antisemitic, genocidal, or terroristic are problematic and potentially defamatory.”

A series of UA law professors immediately expressed concern. Toni Massaro questioned “whether the factual and legal claims herein were vetted.” Tessa Dysart assured the team that “I had nothing to do with this content,” with Mona Hymel adding that “I … did not see her statement ahead of anyone else.” In another email—whose sender and recipient are both, quite oddly, redacted—a fourth colleague wrote: “I don’t think that a person with an understanding of antisemitism drafted or reviewed the part concerning hate speech.”

Hudson privately characterized the reception to her “State of the Faculty” message as “very good,” “except from some law school colleagues.”

But, soon after, UA’s president and the executive director of the Arizona Board of Regents, which governs higher education, received a legal threat from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression stating that the Campus Climate response team was a “deeply chilling and unlawful” act of “formalized government monitoring of protected speech.”

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The weeks and months in-between went as you’d expect. Pro-Palestine demonstrations flourished, an avalanche of anti-Israeli propaganda piled on, and the dark underbelly of the Tucson campus’ politics continued to rear its head.

An October 2023 police report contained details about someone “drawing a swastika and writing ‘dirty Jew’” on a student’s door, which law enforcement classified as “possible bias based vandalism.”

In January 2024, UA professor Jean-Marc Fellous recalled years earlier “my department head” trying to “ridicule and hide an anti-Semitic attack” (“a swastika hand drawn inside my lab”), which the university classified as run-of-the-mill “vandalism” and “managed to bury it.” “The perpetrator is still out there, emboldened no doubt,” he said.

Then came ‘Israeli Apartheid Week’ in April 2024 sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine, a protest that one parent flagged for the Dean of Students “coincide[s] with Passover, which no doubt is coordinated to try to aggravate the Jewish campus community.” UA’s Jewish fraternity (Alpha Epsilon Pi) also was vandalized that month, at which point another professor, Barry Goldman, recommended to Fellous and Hudson that the Faculty Senate “pass a resolution ‘condemning in the strongest terms the defacement of the fraternity house.’”

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It should have been easy.

Hudson confirmed to an associate on April 11 that she had “my informal antisemitism task force looking into language for a possible faculty senate resolution for our May meeting.”

On April 13, Fellous circulated a resolution condemning the vandalism of the fraternity as “virulent antisemitism” and calling on UA to “apprehend and punish the transgressors.” Minor changes were discussed and agreed upon—until May 3, when Hudson notified them that she was “going to adjust” the resolution to focus more on “admin/police violence against student protesters” affiliated with the pro-Palestine encampments.

The task force didn’t take it well.

“What about the violence by the protesters against Jewish students? Are you not going to mention that?” Goldman asked. “Be no advised that if the resolution I drafted is twisted in any significant way, I will speak to the Senate to oppose it.” Fellous agreed, and “advise[d] to keep things separated. Antisemitism and hate crime have nothing to do with the police violence and the manner things were addressed during the protests.”

A third colleague (name redacted, again) emailed Hudson later that week after she “never responded to my request to see the resolution, formerly on antisemitism,” and planned to “address the Senate if it is introduced” in some amended form. “I imagine (or, at least, I hope) you don’t realize the history and antisemitic implications of recent events,” the colleague said.

The following day, Hudson attended a formal meeting of the UA Faculty Senate. She informed the attendees that “I have failed to bring you a resolution on anti-Semitism” because “I cannot in good conscience bring the original resolution drafted as written,” according to video obtained of her remarks. Instead, she referred the resolution “to the Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion committee and possibly other committees for further study.”

In the meantime, Hudson “reiterat[ed] the faculty’s unconditional rejection of all forms of bias,” including “gender identity, reproductive status, and/or sexual orientation,” and urged the attendees to “be patient.” Six months later, when the resolution came up at the November 4 Faculty Senate meeting, Hudson admitted to the attendees: “I’m still collecting feedback on it.”

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It took the University of Arizona an entire year to release these records to me, from my initial FOIA request in May 2024 until the final production in June 2025.

Multiple attorneys and thousands of dollars in legal fees were required to successfully reverse the university’s unnecessary delay (and, later, its formal denial) of my request, which it did only after a final warning that I would be filing a lawsuit within the next 48 hours. More importantly, its refusal to hand over these records denied students and faculty any semblance of transparency into the mechanics behind what was happening on their own campus—or what has happened in the year since.

The best case scenario is that UA succumbed to a culture dominated by over-thinking, whataboutism, and misplaced priorities that allowed hatred to flourish. But its extended fight against transparency suggests a broader institutional failure—one bordering on purposeful evasion of public records laws—with the intention of riding out the storm until Israel and Palestine were out of the news. We deserve better from this public university.

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