Family of slain prof gets $2.5M settlement from U of A, regents

The settlement agreed to by the family of Thomas Meixner, a University of Arizona professor shot and killed on campus, is for $2.5 million from the university and the Arizona Board of Regents, shows a document obtained by the Arizona Daily Star.

For the family’s cooperation, the state is paying that sum as well as establishing and funding an endowed professorship in Meixner’s name and providing mental health resources to faculty, staff and students who were directly and immediately affected by the shooting.

The settlement also requires the UA to provide a tuition/fee waiver to hydrology and atmospheric studies students “most directly and immediately affected” by the shooting, prospectively and retroactively to the semester in which the events preceding the shooting began.

The settlement, announced Tuesday, includes stipulations that Meixner’s family, including his wife, Kathleen, and his two sons, Sean and Brendan, “completely release and forever discharge the state from any and all past, present or future claims, demands” and damages.

Meixner’s family signed the document on Nov. 9, 2023. The family’s lawyers filed an initial claim against the UA of $9 million in March 2023, and announced they were working with the university in October 2023 to settle the claim.

Meixner, who was a professor of hydrology and atmospheric studies, was fatally shot in the Harshbarger building, which houses that department, on Oct. 5, 2022. Former graduate student Murvad Dervish is charged with first-degree murder and is scheduled to stand trial this year.

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According to a report after a faculty investigation, Meixner and other members of the department had repeatedly warned the university about Dervish’s threatening messages, which occurred frequently leading up to the alleged shooting.

As announced on Tuesday, the university is also enacting specific measures by implementing 33 recommendations made by the PAX Group, a business focused on workplace safety, and it will conduct monitoring to confirm they remain in place. The PAX report conducted for the UA found a systemic lack of safety measures, and ineffective investigations into threats made against Meixner and other faculty by Dervish beginning up to a year before Meixner was killed.

“No amount of money can bring Tom back, but the settlement provides the Meixner family with economic security following the tragedy which has upended their lives and given them a sense a relief that the University of Arizona and state of Arizona are taking seriously the need for effective threat assessment and management,” said the Meixner’s family’s lawyer Larry Wulkan in a written statement.

Fred DuVal, chair of the Arizona Board of Regents, which oversees the state’s three public universities including UA, said he was grateful for the Meixner family’s efforts to improve safety at the university.

“The settlement cannot replace Professor Meixner’s exceptional talent and service,” DuVal said in a statement. “We extend our enduring appreciation to the Meixner family who, through unimaginable loss, continues to collaborate with (the UA) to implement meaningful changes to enhance the safety of the University of Arizona campus. We are deeply grateful.”