The Tucson City Council passed a resolution Wednesday night opposing the Trump administration’s “compact” sent to the University of Arizona last week.
Passed unanimously, the resolution proposed by council members Rocque Perez and Lane Santa Cruz calls the proposed deal sent by the White House “an unacceptable act of federal interference that undermines local control, academic freedom, and opportunity for our residents.”
Perez said the Trump administration’s compact “asks universities to pledge loyalty, not excellence.”
“The university’s new administration has spent months over-complying with partisan demands at the state and federal level,” Perez said. “That posture of appeasement has left the university more vulnerable, not less, and now it’s being rewarded, however coercive that reward may be for a pattern of compliance that never should have began.”
City Councilman Rocque Perez.
“Capitulation is not in Tucson’s nature,” he said.
Last week, the Trump administration sent the 10-page compact to nine universities including the University of Arizona. It asks their presidents to agree to: ban the use of race or sex in hiring and admissions; freeze tuition for five years; cap international undergrad enrollment at 15%; apply the government’s definition of gender to campus bathrooms, locker rooms and women’s sports teams; transform or abolish departments that “belittle” conservative ideas; bar employees from speaking out as university representatives on external societal and political events; and other requirements.
In return, the White House says universities would receive benefits including federal funding advantages.
The University of Arizona Faculty Senate approved its own resolution Monday calling on the UA to reject the compact. UA Provost Patricia Prelock told the faculty that “no decisions have been made” by the UA administrators.
Council member Lane Santa Cruz said Wednesday night that the “so-called ‘compact for academic excellence’ is not about excellence, it’s about control.”
“It’s another attempt to make universities choose between federal funding and their independence. That kind of political interference has no place in our classrooms or research labs,” Santa Cruz said. “Tucson’s future depends on protecting that freedom to learn, to question, to innovate without fear of political pressure. ... Education should always be about expanding minds, not enforcing ideologies.”
The resolution also “affirms” the City Council’s confidence in university leadership “to reject the Compact and to continue its responsibility as a land-grant institution that champions access, independence, and opportunity for all.” It also calls on Arizona’s congressional delegation “to oppose federal interference and disinvestment in higher education, recognizing that such actions undermine Tucson’s families, diminish opportunity, and weaken our region’s economic competitiveness.”
Mayor Regina Romero will also be sending a letter to UA President Suresh Garimella, the Arizona Board of Regents, Arizona’s congressional delegation and Gov. Katie Hobbs as part of the resolution passed Wednesday night.
During the meeting, Romero said the all-Democrat City Council, in passing its resolution, is “not doing this against the University of Arizona ... we are doing this to defend the academic integrity and the academic freedom of the University of Arizona.”
“Compliance, especially with Trump, does not bring you any leeway. Compliance only brings about much more pushback from President Trump and his political agenda,” Romero said. “It has already seen an intrusion by this administration that is purely political, and compliance will get us even more political demands from this administration.”
Multiple UA students and alumni came to speak during Wednesday night’s meeting.
UA student Maria Cooperstein told the City Council that UA accepting the compact “can impact students of color, LGBTQ+ students and international students.”
“U of A students will not stand by and be complicit as our freedom of speech is sold away. We will not be bystanders (while) our educational freedom is sold. Our resources, our freedom of speech, our student safety is not for sale,” Cooperstein said. “To accept the contract is to reject marginalized students.”
Adrian Abel, a student at the UA, said “the way that the current U.S. administration is dangling funds over universities’ heads is bribery.”
“It isn’t right, and it isn’t normal ... this is a vague, boilerplate compact that threatens university departments that belittle conservative views. What does that even mean, practically?” Abel said. “We need to set a precedent that stands on the right side of history, standing with our neighbors, with our community, with our students, not against them. ... I think Tucson can do better.”
Gem Abarca, a recent UA graduate, said the UA accepting the compact “would have devastating ripple effects, not just in the immediate, but for generations.”
“Ripple effects for our current community wellbeing, community members in the first grade who are swearing to their teachers that they will go to college, and ripple effects for economic wellbeing,” Abarca said. “I stand before you able to say that I have earned my degree because of DEI initiatives which the compact opposes. I come from a low-income neighborhood. DEI is not just about queer and trans issues, DEI provides opportunity for those who would not ordinarily have the time, money, experience, knowledge and in other words, privilege of obtaining the opportunity in the first place.”
