The University of Arizona Faculty Senate chair plans to file a complaint with the state’s ombudsman about the “nonresponsive” UA public records office after she says she’s been stonewalled for months.
Leila Hudson told faculty senators that the issue is a “legal problem as well as an institutional problem,” and that she is considering taking legal action and informing the Arizona Attorney General’s Office.
“This public records issue is affecting our ability to hold ourselves accountable and to inform the community about the state of the university,” she said.
In a statement to the Arizona Daily Star, Mitch Zak, a spokesperson for the university, said, “the University of Arizona Office of Public Records takes its responsibility to provide timely and accurate responses very seriously.”
Zak added: “Delays in processing are typically due to high request volume or the need for thorough review to ensure privacy and legal compliance.”
Hudson said she filed 25 public records requests on June 30, and not one has been fulfilled.
UA Faculty Senate Chair Leila Hudson
The Star has filed dozens of records requests in the last year with the UA’s public records office related to a plethora of issues, including the university’s financial crisis, personnel issues, and response to pro-Palestinian encampments, and has received only a handful in return.
“It’s been particularly noticeable over the past year with the financial crisis,” said Arizona Daily Star Executive Editor David McCumber. “The university has been exceedingly slow to fill records requests — far slower than the law requires — and many of our requests, made months ago, remain unfilled.
“Complying with public-records shouldn’t be an afterthought for public institutions. It is a core responsibility. The university is doing the public’s business with the public’s money and therefore the public is entitled to timely information about that business,” McCumber said.
The wait for public records has also been long for Dylan Smith, editor and co-publisher of the Tucson Sentinel.
He told the Star that after the murder of University of Arizona professor Thomas Meixner in October 2022, the Sentinel, like most local media outlets, requested “extensive” public records relating to the on-campus shooting.
Smith said that about a year later, the Sentinel had to “remind university officials that they still had not released a single document, despite Arizona law requiring them to do so promptly.”
In February 2024, the university turned over records but just two small files, he says, including a public statement from then-President Robert C. Robbins and a piece of paper acknowledging the shooter had been enrolled at the UA.
“University officials have yet to provide the records they should have turned over promptly two years ago,” Smith said.
University of Arizona campus
