FOIAzona

Every month, the University of Arizona holds a Faculty Senate meeting — and, every month, uploads a video of the meeting online a few days later. It had done this for the past 12 months straight without fail … until November 2025.

That was two days after FOIAzona released our year-long investigation into anti-Israel bias at the university. Our findings were featured in the Wall Street Journal and highlighted by national advocacy organizations and have led to ongoing conversations among Arizona lawmakers.

It also was discussed extensively at UA’s Faculty Senate meeting on November 3, the video of which was not uploaded until December 2025, a delay that I am certain was a complete accident unrelated to the national scrutiny.

In the video, Leila Hudson (the Faculty Chair whose emails appeared in our FOIA investigation) can be seen speaking about the Wall Street Journal’s editorial for two full minutes. An unidentified faculty member then asks Hudson whether she “verified the authenticity of this online article” and whether it is “really legitimate because we all know how easy it is to spoof anything these days.”

Hudson, who knows that the editorial is real because she is not dumb, still responds by suggesting that the matter is up for interpretation.

“That’s one of the reasons why I’m going to append it to our official proceedings so that everyone can take a crack at it and make sure what it may or may not be,” she said. “It has all the hallmarks of legitimacy.”

Quixotic, to be sure. You can see a transcript of Hudson’s relevant remarks below:

“And then I wanted to brief the Senate on a matter of some concern to me but also I think to us. On Thursday, October 30, the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal posted an editorial attacking our faculty and me in particular as anti-Semitic and pro-terrorist.

“I was not contacted for comment or context about this article, so it came as a rather jolting surprise and I understand that others were not contacted as well. The article, which does not seem to have made it into the print version of the Wall Street Journal, was a complete surprise. I have received threatening and abusive emails as a result, which I have submitted to the Threat Assessment Management team.

“Coincidentally, at the same afternoon that the Wall Street Journal article began to circulate online, I personally was falsely and anonymously accused of being overheard loudly expressing anti-Semitic views behind the closed door of my office. I look forward to those spurious, malicious charges being investigated and dismissed for the outrageous and slanderous lie that they are.

“I will append the Wall Street Journal editorial to the meeting minutes for next time. I must say, I am not sure what to make of this episode other than that it strengthens my, and I hope our collective, commitment to academic integrity, freedom, our basic anti-hate values, and the importance of institutional neutrality in these times of extreme partisanship. I just wanted to get that on the record and make sure that everyone was aware of this episode.”

The video can be seen here.

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