A University of Arizona professor is asking a judge to disqualify the Arizona Attorney General's Office from defending the university in his civil rights lawsuit, alleging that the AG attorney representing UA tampered with witnesses after the professor reported what he says was false testimony by a former dean.

Keiron Bailey, a tenured associate professor who sued the Arizona Board of Regents and nine current and former administrators in December 2023, says lawyers representing the university attempted to have him removed from an elected faculty post after he formally notified them that former College of Education Dean Robert Berry gave false sworn testimony in a related state court case.

Bailey, who is representing himself in the case, alleges a yearslong campaign of retaliation after he repeatedly reported sex-based harassment against women colleagues, beginning with an incident he says his former dean directed at his wife in December 2017.

Bailey says former Dean of International Education JP Jones sent harassing electronic messages to his wife at 1 a.m. in December 2017, using sexually degrading language and making threats. After Bailey began reporting the harassment to administrators, he says the university retaliated against him repeatedly over the following six years, denying him promotion, removing him from faculty committees, issuing multiple office exclusions and calling police on him without cause.

Administrators ultimately fired him from his tenured position in the College of Education in May 2023 without citing a specific cause or following required process. After a university conciliation committee later found numerous apparent process violations, the dismissal was rescinded and Bailey was reassigned to a research office, where he says he was placed in a basement office infested with ants, the lawsuit says.

The lawsuit names former President Robert Robbins, former Provost Liesl Folks, Vice Provost for Academic Affairs Andrea Romero, former HR Vice President Diane Brennan, Berry, former department head Regina Deil-Amen, former department head Melanie Bertrand, former Interim Provost Ron Marx and UA General Counsel Laura Todd Johnson as defendants alongside ABOR, the state agency that oversees Arizona's public universities.

Three of his five claims survived a motion to dismiss earlier this year.

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Tucson SpotlightCaitlin Schmidt

Bailey’s latest motion, filed June 30, centers on events that followed his formal notification to court and counsel earlier this year that Berry gave false sworn testimony in an unrelated retaliation case previously reported on by Tucson Spotlight.

Berry's testimony came in the case of Clarissa Siebern, a UA business manager who alleges she was fired in retaliation for raising concerns about understaffing in her department. Bailey alleges Berry falsely described disciplinary actions taken against him, including what Bailey calls a fictional "30-day suspension from campus" that never occurred and that is contradicted by emails from former Provost Liesl Folks stating the actions in question were "not disciplinary."

According to the motion, Daniel Dowd, a partner at the Phoenix law firm defending ABOR in the Siebern case, received Bailey's perjury notification sometime after May 5. The firm is not involved in Bailey's federal lawsuit.

On May 22, the motion alleges, Dowd sent Bailey a personal email and, separately, sent a letter to the chair of UA's Committee on Academic Freedom and Tenure seeking Bailey's removal from a faculty panel evaluating an unrelated case involving a colleague, on grounds of alleged bias toward the university.

Bailey argues the timing is not coincidental. He said that Dowd participated in the April 29 CAFT hearing in the matter, at which Bailey was also a named panel member, and raised no objection to Bailey's participation at that time or at any point before receiving the perjury notification.

"It is reasonable to conclude that Mr. Dowd's letters and actions at UA direction in seeking Plaintiff's removal from his elected post are therefore prompted entirely by Plaintiff's Citizen Notice of Perjury," the motion said.

Bailey says Dowd's letter to the CAFT chair also contained what he describes as a threat of unspecified legal action against him, citing no law or statute.

Bailey argues the effort to remove him from his faculty post amounts to interference with his employment and a violation of state and federal witness tampering laws. He reported his concerns to multiple FBI offices and the Justice Department on June 7, according to the motion.

The motion also says that during a June 22 hearing in the Siebern case, ABOR's attorney cited Berry's testimony as consistent and credible during her argument in support of ABOR's motion for summary judgment.

Also cited in the motion is a June 18 letter from the Indiana Attorney General's office, where Bailey says he filed a separate perjury notification after Berry took a position as dean of Indiana University's College of Education in March 2025. The Indiana AG's office responded that it would forward the complaint to the appropriate division and recommended Bailey continue to follow up with the FBI and Justice Department, according to the motion.

Bailey contrasts that response with what he describes as nonresponse from the Arizona Attorney General's office, which is also the office representing ABOR in his federal lawsuit through Assistant Attorney General Ann Hobart.

That dual role is central to the filing. Bailey has previously sought Hobart's disqualification in a motion filed March 9, and the new filing asks the court to supplement that record with the new information about Dowd and the Indiana AG response.

The motion argues Hobart's simultaneous representation of Berry in both this case and the Siebern matter, combined with her office's failure to investigate Berry's alleged perjury or the alleged witness tampering, creates an unmanageable conflict.

Bailey says he intends to name Hobart as a witness to the conduct of defendants including Dr. Ron Marx under Count IV and the handling of his perjury complaint, and said he may seek to add her as a defendant under the civil rights conspiracy count if further retaliation occurs.

In March, Magistrate Judge Lynnette Kimmins issued a report recommending the court allow his Title VII retaliation, Title IX retaliation and First Amendment retaliation claims to proceed, while recommending dismissal of his equal protection and conspiracy counts. Bailey has objected to those dismissals, and the judge has not yet ruled on the objections.

The AG’s office did not respond to Tucson Spotlight’s request for comment and had not filed a response to the motion as of publication.

Caitlin Schmidt is Editor and Publisher of Tucson Spotlight. Contact her at caitlin@tucsonspotlight.org.

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