Berkeley, Calif. — More than 400 faculty and staff members at California colleges sent a letter on Wednesday protesting Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s elimination of funds for labor-research centers on two University of California campuses, saying the cuts threatened academic freedom.

A line-item veto by Governor Schwarzenegger last month rejected $5.4-million for centers on the university’s Berkeley and Los Angeles campuses. The program that supports the centers, the Miguel Contreras Labor Program, has produced policy research and educated students on labor and employment issues for eight years.

The letter says the elimination of the program, which was the only individual item the governor vetoed in the university’s $3-billion budget for 2008-9, violates its freedom to conduct research on controversial topics.

“Given the tiny amount of savings, it is hard to understand this action as other than politically motivated,” the letter says. “We see this as unwarranted political interference in the academic activities of the University of California.”

Aides to the governor have said that the cut was not political, but that the state’s budget deficit had forced him to eliminate money for several state programs. Mr. Schwarzenegger has tried to cut the program’s budget before, provoking similar outcries from university faculty and union leaders. —Josh Keller