Arizona Daily Star : "Stigma from passage of SB 1070 plagues tourism, job recruitment - Arizona's Scarlet letter? State's tarnished image hurts our economy, critics say" - Deserting Arizona's Universities - Arizona's Stinking Image

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Arizona Daily Star
Stigma from passage of SB 1070 plagues tourism, job recruitment
Arizona's Scarlet letter? State's tarnished image hurts our economy, critics say
By Brady McCombs and Tim Steller
Tuesday, May 3, 201


Stigma from passage of SB 1070 plagues tourism, job recruitment


Some excerpts :

• The state's resorts and hotels are still having trouble landing lucrative meetings of national associations, which often avoid controversy to ensure maximum attendance from their diverse memberships.

• The University of Arizona has heard from top professors and graduate students that they don't want to move to Arizona because of the law, which would require law enforcement officers to question anyone they stop for another reason about their immigration status if they suspect the person is in this country illegally.

• Business recruitment in Arizona has been hindered by the controversy surrounding SB 1070, along with deep cuts to the state's education system and proposals to allow guns on Arizona campuses.

Arizona "definitely has a stigma attached to it," said Frances Merryman, a vice president for Northern Trust Bank in Tucson and member of several economic development boards.

Francisco Marmolejo travels the world as the executive director for the Consortium for North American Higher Education Collaboration, based at the University of Arizona.

"Arizona is famous in many parts of the world," he said, "and unfortunately not for the right reasons."

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The amount of time the state has been in the national news for SB 1070, the boycott, gun laws and other policies has affected the university's ability to recruit, said Allison Vaillancourt, the UA's vice president for human resources.

When the College of Education was looking for a new faculty member this past winter, several candidates pulled out because of the state's politics, said Jeff Milem, the McFarland distinguished professor in the UA's College of Education. The college ended up getting a great person for the job, but the perception that Arizona is hostile to people of color was on candidates' minds, he said.

Last spring, two high-quality doctoral students decided not to come to Tucson because of the state's politics, he said.

"They straight out told me: They weren't going to come here because of the climate," Milem said. "It's tough to argue with that. I'm upset about that - I lost what could have been two outstanding doctoral students to other grad programs."

Though his professional experience has been tremendous, Milem admits he's thought about leaving, too. The passage of SB 1070 was the latest move by the Arizona Legislature that has rubbed many the wrong way, he said, along with this year's ethnic studies bill and last year's Proposition 107, which banned affirmative action in publicly funded entities.

"I've seriously had to consider whether this is a place I want to be," said Milem, who's at his third institution after stints at Vanderbilt and the University of Maryland.

The passage of SB 1070 was the most dramatic of several hits Arizona's image in the past few years, said Merryman, of Northern Trust Bank. Major cuts to primary and higher education budgets have caused parents concern for their children's education, along with the passage of Prop. 107 banning affirmative action and HB 2281, which bans ethnic studies in Arizona schools, Merryman said.

"Companies are now diversified and they believe in diversification, and they are not going to want to come to a state that is so blatantly against diversity," Merryman said. "What message are we sending to sophisticated business people?"

The controversy has kept some companies from moving into Michael Pollack's dozens of Arizona shopping centers, Pollack said. He's not heard of a single business that's been helped by SB 1070, he said.

"We've had companies that have told us, 'Right now we're not looking in Arizona,'" said Pollack, owner of a big Mesa-based commercial real-estate firm. "They'd say it's a little bit controversial now for us."

Similarly, Garrett Kowalewski has heard from job candidates who didn't want to come to Arizona. Kowalewski owns Staff Matters Inc., a Tucson recruiting firm, and heard from three candidates in the last two months who were worried "about noncitizens having trouble" in Arizona, he said.

That was three from about 50 out-of-state conversations over the time period, Kowalewski said. "If three said something, probably 15 or 20 thought it," he said. "I've never had comments like this before in my 11 years in the industry."

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