A Pima County Superior Court judge is expected to rule soon about whether a lawsuit brought by a former University of Arizona employee can proceed to trial, leaving unresolved for the moment a legal dispute that offers a window into dysfunction inside the UA’s College of Education in the months before the university’s financial crisis became public.
The lawsuit was filed by Clarissa Siebern, a former business manager in the UA’s College of Education who says she was fired in October 2023 in retaliation for raising concerns about labor law violations and financial mismanagement — complaints she was making inside the university months before its financial crisis became public.
Arizona Luminaria reached out to the University of Arizona and the Arizona Board of Regents for comment on the case and did not receive a response by publication time.
Fired after raising alarms
Siebern spent 26 years at the University of Arizona, working her way up from administrative roles to business manager in the Department of Disability and Psychoeducational Studies. She had never received a written disciplinary action, according to court records, although an attorney for the regents said in a June court hearing that she had informal disciplinary conversations with her boss. Siebern told Arizona Luminaria there were never any disciplinary discussions. Her supervisor had nominated her for a staff excellence award and approved her for a merit raise just months before her termination…