Out of university, uncovered sedatives for judge (9)
I believe the answer is:
arbitrate
'out of university' is the definition.
The answer and definition can be both to do with communicating as well as being verbs in their base form.
Perhaps there's a link between them I don't understand?
'uncovered sedatives for judge' is the wordplay.
'uncovered' says to take the centre.
'sedatives' becomes 'phenobarbitals' (phenobarbital is a kind of sedative).
'for judge' becomes 'bitrate' (I can't justify this - if you can you should believe this answer much more).
The centre of 'phenobarbitals' is 'ar'.
'ar'+'bitrate'='ARBITRATE'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for arbitrate that I've seen before include "Act between disputing parties" , "Mediate" , "judge" , "Help settle a dispute" , "Decide" .)