ABOR chair sends cease and desist letter to U of A Faculty Senate chair

The chair of the Arizona Board of Regents sent the University of Arizona Faculty Senate chair a cease-and-desist letter after she raised questions about his prior employment and whether it poses a potential conflict of interest to his board service.

In Monday’s Faculty Senate meeting, Chair Leila Hudson, a professor in Middle Eastern and North African studies, raised the questions about ABOR Chair Fred DuVal’s former employment with Amicus Investors. The recording of the Faculty Senate meeting was briefly removed from the senate's website but has since been reposted.

DuVal hired lawyer Paul Charlton, a former U.S. assistant attorney. In a letter sent to Hudson and other Faculty Senate leaders on Thursday, Charlton wrote that Hudson’s remarks “caused injury to Mr. DuVal’s reputation.”

Amicus Investors was formed in 2015, and, according to its website, “invests in universities, partnering with them to help realize their master plans, because strong universities mean successful students and vibrant communities.”

The UA and Arizona State University are listed as universities the group has worked with. The regents oversee UA, ASU and Northern Arizona University.

DuVal served as managing director of the business from April 2015 through August 2017, according to his LinkedIn page. DuVal was not employed by Amicus Investors when he served as a regent from 2006 through 2012 or began his second term in 2018, he and a regents spokeswoman said.

DuVal told the Star earlier this week: “I have retained legal counsel to explore my legal options regarding Ms. Hudson’s public, defamatory statements at (Monday’s) faculty senate meeting. Her comments were demonstrably false, her research skills are embarrassing and her behavior was inexcusable.”

Hudson is asking the UA general counsel to represent her, according to an email obtained by the Star.

“Since the protected speech referenced in Mr. DuVal’s letter was performed in the course of my employment at the University of Arizona and under my statutory obligations under ARS 15-1601b as elected chair of the faculty, I request that you represent me in any litigation or provide me with a private attorney,” Hudson wrote to the UA general counsel’s office on Thursday.

Despite her request, Hudson has retained her own private counsel. In a statement to the Star, her lawyer, Jesse Ritchey, said his client was “just exercising her constitutional right and fulfilling her obligations when she raised her public concern.”

He added that Hudson is “looking at her various legal options on the table and evaluating those,” but said he was “not prepared to say” what those options might be.

Regent calls for new faculty leader

In Thursday’s ABOR meeting in Tempe, DuVal spoke briefly about the accusations, stating that his time at Amicus Investors was brief because the business was not successful.

“The caliber of academic research skills demonstrated here are rather concerning,” DuVal said of Hudson’s accusations. “I frankly now doubt the accuracy and credibility of any one of the many accusations that are being made against the university (UA) and the president.”

DuVal said that “Dr. Hudson has inflicted a terrible blow to shared governance, which frankly works well at the other two universities,” adding that Hudson’s questions about his time at Amicus Investors “crossed a line.”

“How do you develop trust with people who intentionally lie and publicly defame their partner?” he asked.

Lyndel Manson, another regent, joined DuVal in criticizing the UA Faculty Senate.

“The behavior of the Faculty Senate has been of concern to the regents for a number of years,” she said. “This past week’s personal attacks are beyond the pale. It is fully indicative of a culture of fear that has been instilled by current leadership, creating an environment where faculty are loath to speak their minds in opposition or even contemplate running against the current regime.”

She added that “watching the senate try to run a meeting is an exercise in futility,” and that the “level of dysfunction on display” was “embarrassing.”

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Manson said she encouraged UA President Robert C. Robbins to “establish new faculty leadership.”

“Boycotting talking” to Hudson

In her own statement to the Star after DuVal threatened her with legal action, Hudson said she should be referred to as “Dr. Hudson” rather than “Ms. Hudson,” as she has a PhD.

“It is my opinion that the chair of ABOR should simply disclose or otherwise clarify his association with any company doing business with the state of Arizona’s public universities,” she said.

In Monday’s senate meeting, Hudson showed screenshots of the Amicus Investors website from the Wayback Machine, a digital tool that allows users to see past versions of websites.

In the screenshots shared by Hudson, DuVal was listed as an employee of Amicus Investors on its website as recently as April 2023, despite his LinkedIn profile stating otherwise.

Hudson said her suggestion of a conflict of interest stems from a person potentially “serving different agencies interacting with one another on different sides of a transaction.”

“This is what shared governance does,” Hudson told the Faculty Senate. “It asks questions. I have questions I would like to ask Chair DuVal, and of course it doesn’t help that Chair DuVal has been boycotting talking to the chair of the faculty at the UA since about a year ago.”

DuVal told the Star on Tuesday that Hudson’s expectation of dialogue with him is “odd.”

“She hasn’t had a productive engagement with any regent chair — ever,” he said. “I do have regular, relevant and productive engagements with well over a dozen other terrific senators.”

DuVal added that he has “hosted meals with many of them. I talk to two or three every single day. I publicly offered up my email and I return every single call. So, I’m not lacking for productive elected faculty input.”

Kristin Little, a faculty senator and lecturer in English, asked Hudson if DuVal presented his former employment to ABOR.

Hudson responded that she “actually has no information about that.”

A spokeswoman for ABOR told the Star that “A.R.S. § 38-503 requires the disclosure of conflicts at the time.”

“Chair DuVal did not work for or own Amicus when he was a regent, so he would not have to disclose past employment unless it created a conflict now,” the spokeswoman said.

DuVal’s career

DuVal’s ABOR bio notes that he was White House deputy assistant for intergovernmental affairs to President Bill Clinton from 1997 to 2000. He also worked in D.C. as U.S. deputy chief of protocol and deputy assistant secretary of state in the 1990s. Before that he was senior staff assistant to Arizona Gov. Bruce Babbitt.

He is president of DuVal and Associates, board chairman of Excelsior Mining, and on the board of Drive Time Auto Group, the bio says. He founded the Institute for Civil Discourse at the UA.

DuVal ran as the 2014 Democratic nominee for Arizona governor, losing to Republican Doug Ducey. Ducey appointed him in 2018 to an eight-year term on ABOR. DuVal was also a regent from 2006 to 2012, appointed by Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano.