In 2017, Dr. Robert Robbins was introduced as the new president of the University of Arizona. But it was odd. Normally there would be a meet-and-greet with university president finalists, which I had attended in 1997. But the Arizona Board of Regents introduced Dr. Robbins as the only finalist for the University of Arizona presidency.
Dr. Robbins’ term didn’t start well. Per the NCAA enforcement staff report, later in September 2017, after Emanuel “Book” Richardson, an Arizona basketball assistant, was arrested at his home, “the institution’s outside counsel and head of compliance, at the direction of the president, conducted an unrecorded interview with Richardson….” Richardson admitted his guilt and served criminal time, but Robbins, who ordered the interview which caused one of five Level 1 violations, was not punished.
In addition, there are the obvious miscues. It doesn’t help, for example, that in October 2019, Dr. Robbins, in front of some Native American students, said he would need to redo his DNA testing because he thought his “very high cheekbones” showed he was Cherokee and the DNA testing showed he had no Cherokee ancestry. Robbins later did apologize for this statement.
The latest failure by Dr. Robbins was the lack of oversight of the threats to Dr. Thomas Meixner, which led to Meixner’s murder. The response by the Arizona Board of Regents was their support for Robbins. A $9 million claim has been filed against the ABOR due to Robbins and his leadership team’s failure to protect Dr. Meixner and others.