Tucson Councilmembers: UA's merging of cultural centers betrays mission & people

As proud alumni of the University of Arizona and current members of the Tucson City Council, we write with deep disappointment and a sense of responsibility.

The university’s recent decision to consolidate its seven cultural and identity-based centers into a single “multicultural hub” is not just a bureaucratic restructuring — it is an erasure. An erasure of the work, vision, and sacrifices of generations of students, faculty, staff, and community members who fought to build and sustain these spaces. We stand in full solidarity with those demanding their restoration.

Each of these centers — Asian Pacific American Student Affairs, African American Student Affairs, the Adalberto and Ana Guerrero Student Center, the Women and Gender Resource Center, the LGBTQ+ Resource Center, the Disability Cultural Center, and Native American Student Affairs — was born of struggle, activism, and intentional investment. We’ve worked in them. We’ve benefited from them. And we’ve helped preserve them.

To dismantle these centers is to disregard the university’s identity as a land-grant institution, a Hispanic-Serving Institution, and an R1 research university. These aren’t symbolic designations—they’re commitments. Culture is not a sidebar to the academic enterprise; it is the very fabric of who attends, who teaches, who gives, and who believes in the promise of this institution.

Take, for example, the Adalberto and Ana Guerrero Student Center. Renaming it under a generic, non-identity-based framework doesn’t just strip a title—it erases a legacy. What message does this send to alumni and donors whose names appear on buildings, scholarships, and endowments? That even a lifetime of service can be quietly undone when it becomes politically inconvenient?

It sends a chilling signal: that community icons—like the Guerreros—can be discarded at the whim of political winds. Especially when those winds are stirred by the same Arizona Senate president who undermines voting rights, environmental protections, and sacred Indigenous lands.

As elected officials, we value our partnership with the University of Arizona. But we also have a duty to speak plainly: this decision runs counter to the mission of the university and the values of the community it serves. Our constituents in Ward 1 and Ward 5 — home to Tucson’s historic barrios, the South Side, the West Side, and communities of color — deserve a university that reflects and protects them. One that builds trust, not breaks it.

It’s also troubling that this announcement came at the end of the academic year, when students were away and unable to organize or respond. That timing isn’t accidental — it’s strategic. And it’s disappointing.

More concerning still are the motivations behind the decision. If the University of Arizona is acting preemptively to appease political pressure from the state legislature or federal administration, it sets a dangerous precedent. Universities should defend academic freedom and democratic values, not bend to every ideological shift. If this is about compliance, the public deserves to know who, exactly, UA is trying to comply with, and at what cost.

Pima Community College’s chancellor, unlike UA President Garimella, made the effort to meet with and listen to the community before proposing, let alone enacting, any structural changes. That absence of leadership at UA is real, and it shows.

As elected representatives and alumni, we urge the University of Arizona to reverse course. Protect these spaces. Restore these roles. Defend your students, your staff, and your legacy. Because if we can no longer recognize our university — if the very people who built it no longer feel welcome — then it’s not the Arizona we knew, and it’s not one we can stand behind.

Ward 5 Councilmember Rocque Perez represents the South Side, parts of the Southeast Side, and historic barrios. Ward 1 Councilmember Lane Santa Cruz represents the West Side, Southwest Side and Downtown Tucson.