After shooting, U of A to require background checks of grad assistants

The University of Arizona will require all graduate assistants — of which it has roughly 2,800 — to go through a background check before they can start work for the university.

The policy change, which UA President Robert Robbins announced in a memo Wednesday, comes about three months after Murad Dervish, a former graduate assistant in the UA’s hydrology department, allegedly shot and killed professor Thomas Meixner, who was head of the department, in a hallway on campus. Dervish is jailed without bond on a first-degree murder charge to which he has pleaded not guilty.

Although Dervish had a history of violent, unlawful behavior, the hydrology department was not aware of that when it offered him an assistantship because the UA did not run criminal background checks on all graduate assistants at the time.

After the shooting, the university collected feedback from 1,200 students, staff and community members, and also consulted internal and external experts to examine its campus safety protocols. The UA also hired the PAX Group, LLC, a crisis management firm, to evaluate its campus safety, and Robbins said a report from the group is expected in the next few weeks.

“Although we are eager to review initial campus safety recommendations from the PAX Group, we have not waited to take actions to improve security measures,” Robbins said in the memo. “In consultation with our security advisers, the university is moving forward to implement several important steps to enhance safety.”

Currently, only graduate assistants in security-sensitive positions or who disclose prior felony convictions are background checked before starting a new job. Graduate assistants are employed to do many different jobs on campus, which can include teaching and research.

The change, which will go into effect July 1, 2023, will apply to any graduate assistant starting a new job or experiencing a qualifying job change. Hiring departments are responsible for covering the cost of the background check, which can be up to $92 for a combined criminal record and motor vehicle check.

Neither Arizona State University nor Northern Arizona University require all graduate assistants to complete a background check. An NAU spokesperson said Thursday that although the university only requires background checks upon request or for safety- and security-sensitive positions now, it “is in the process of reviewing our processes and requirements as it relates to all background checks at the university.”

Other safety changes

In addition to expanding the background check requirement for graduate assistants at the UA, Robbins also announced numerous other changes to campus safety policies. They include:

• Security assessment of buildings. The UA said building managers will partner with the University of Arizona Police Department to conduct an up-to-date security assessment and create an emergency plan for each building, consistent with the UA’s campus emergency response plan, by the end of this semester.
• Locks and keyless access: The UA said it is beginning the process of installing fire and safety compliant locks to classroom doors and expanding keyless access to more buildings. This “would allow us to lock down more buildings from a central location in the event of an emergency,” a UA spokesperson said.
• Automatic registration for UAlert: All students, employees and designated campus colleagues will soon be automatically registered to receive UAlert messages through both their university email addresses and cell phone numbers if they have provided those to the UA. These registrations will never expire while people are active members of the university community. All users will be notified when their cell phone numbers are registered and will be given the option to opt out of text messages. Additionally, a new Campus Incidents page will have up-to-date information on any campus emergencies.
• Online preparedness training for individuals: The UA is encouraging every student, employed and designated campus colleague to watch its 12-minute, online Active Shooter Preparedness training within the next 30 days. For any individuals who feel uncomfortable watching the video version, there is an alternative option to read important safety information.
• In-person preparedness training for academic units: The UA said it wants all departments and units that have not had an in-person active shooter response training provided by UAPD since the start of fall semester to schedule training during this semester.

Dervish’s record

Dervish lost his job as a UA graduate assistant and was expelled from campus in February 2022.

Then, in the several months leading up to the October shooting, he sent numerous disturbing emails to Meixner and others in the department.

The targeted professors contacted the University of Arizona Police Department, which twice attempted to get the Pima County Attorney’s Office to charge Dervish with misdemeanor threats and intimidation.

However, the prosecutors’ office has publicly stated since the shooting that, at the time, it did not have enough evidence under the legal guidelines to charge Dervish.

Dervish had a 10-year long criminal history in other states at the time he started at the UA, according to previous reporting by the Arizona Daily Star.

In 2011, he served time in prison in California after an arrest on “a serious” but unknown charge; that same year he physically assaulted his mother, police said. He’d also been arrested in Pennsylvania on charges of driving under the influence. And before he moved to Tucson, when he was enrolled in a graduate program and employed as a teaching assistant at San Diego State University, he harassed and threatened professors there to the point that one student filed a Title IX complaint and a restraining order against him, records say.

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Since the UA did not require criminal background checks on new graduate assistants at the time Dervish started, none of those prior incidents were made known to the hydrology department before it offered him the graduate assistantship.

Might not automatically disqualify

When the new background check policy goes into effect this summer, a criminal history may not automatically disqualify an applicant. When the Star asked the UA how it will assess flags on a background check, a spokesperson pointed to this statement posted on a UA website:

“When Human Resources evaluates whether to employ an individual with a criminal history, considerations include relevance of a criminal conviction to the job duties to be performed, the nature and seriousness of the offense, the finalist’s work history since the conviction, the date of the most recent offense and the truthfulness of the information provided by the finalist.”

The expanded background check policy is “one of those solutions that I believe was reactionary and may have substance to it,” said Patrick Robles, a senior at the UA and president of the Associated Students of the University of Arizona. “But I do worry about those who have been formerly incarcerated and those people who may have found themselves on the other side of the law a long time ago being limited in their (pursuit) of education opportunities here at our university.”

Robles, who was in sight of the hydrology building when the shooting happened, formed a student-led safety task force last fall. The task force’s sole purpose is to add student voices to the conversations with PAX, the group still in the process of analyzing and advising the UA’s campus safety policies.

“I want to make sure that whatever comes out of this report is not sugar-coated,” Robles said. “And it shouldn’t just be about gun violence. There’s a holistic approach to safety, whether it involves people who have been sexually assaulted or harassed — all of that is encompassed when it comes to safety at our university.”

One change Robles was happy to see announced Wednesday is the automatic enrollment in the campus safety alert system. On the day of the shooting, Robles didn’t realize he wasn’t signed up for the alerts, and “had no idea what to believe” as he watched emergency vehicles converge across the street from where he was sitting that afternoon.

It wasn’t until he could get information from other students who were getting the alerts that he got a sense of what was happening and how he should react to make himself safe.

“It’s important to make sure everyone is on the same page,” Robles said. “It’s a necessary change that will possibly help dictate whether someone will survive another incident — God forbid — if it were to happen again.”

‘Person-to-person level’ needed

Ted Downing, a faculty senator and professor of social development, said he’s concerned that the focus on technology in these new campus safety policies is “superficial.”

“A door lock is not going to tell you who’s at the door,” Downing told the Star. “I want to know ahead of time that we have a student who has a problem, and I want to know how we can work with that student and mitigate it. But those problems are on the person-to-person level, which have nothing to do with installing locks.”

A more individualized approach in dealing with problematic students, Downing added, would be preferable to the widespread background checks of potential graduate assistants, which could shut out some students with records who would otherwise be successful.

“They’re trying to predict ahead of time who’s going to do something,” Downing said, but “it could discourage students from applying. If you’ve been convicted, done your time and you’re free and out in society, there’s no reason to say you can’t attend the University of Arizona.”