Yazzie Martinez Lawsuit is New Mexico’s Brown -v- Board of Education
The State Court Needs To Force a Plan That Ensures The Constitutional Rights of Native American Children, Economically Disadvantaged Children, English Language Learners, and Children with disabilities.
For more than six years, Governor Lujan Grisham has stubbornly refused to address the unfairness of a state education system which has harmed Native American children, economically disadvantaged children, English Language Learners, and children with disabilities.
In the Yazzie and Martinez lawsuits, filed more than ten years ago, Hispanic and Navajo plaintiffs successfully challenged the discriminatory practices of the state’s education policies that denied their children access to the state’s constitutionally guaranteed uniform system of free public schools, ensuring educational opportunities for all children in the state.
The denial of access has been sustained through discriminatory policy that has reared its ugly head ever since New Mexico became a state.
In 2018, First Judicial Court Judge Sarah Singleton wrote in a landmark decision that the state’s public education system violates the education clause of the New Mexico Constitution as it did not provide at-risk students, children who come from economically disadvantaged homes, children who are English Language Learners, children who are Native American, and children with a disability, with adequately funded and developed programs.
In response to Judge Singleton’s findings and order, Michelle Lujan Grisham, a 2018 candidate for Governor New Mexico, called on sitting Governor Susana Martinez and her PED Secretary “to publicly commit to not appealing the landmark education lawsuit decision.”
Lujan Grisham went further, stating, “For too long, our education system has failed our children, educators, families and communities, drastically undermining our economy and our public safety while straining our overburdened social services.”
Shortly after taking office in 2019, she announced her decision not to appeal the Court’s ruling.
However, her indifference towards systemic racism embedded in state education policy began to seep through the layers of her political persona, as she told an editorial board that “she agrees with the spirit of that ruling but that her administration will mount a vigorous legal defense” as was reported at the time by Dan Boyd and Shelby Perea, in the Albuquerque Journal.
Boyd and Perea also reported the new governor as saying: ““We will litigate aggressively each finding and each fact,” Lujan Grisham said during a meeting with Journal editors and reporters. “I am not inclined to a consent decree – I think that would be problematic in any number of ways.”
And in March of 2020, surprising many advocates for children, Lujan Grisham showed her true colors – changing course by filing a motion to have the lawsuit dismissed.
The Governor insisted that she was trying to protect the independence of the Public Education Department to call the shots in developing policy and spending priorities – as though that was more important than protecting the constitutional rights of the children who have been victims of systemic racism and discrimination for decades.
She was rebuffed by the Court in June of 2020.
New Mexico First Judicial District Judge Matthew Wilson, who has presided over the case since Judge Singleton’s death, rejected Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham’s request to dismiss the lawsuit.
Associated Press’ Cedar Attanasio reported the Judge saying, “The state cannot be deemed to have complied with this court’s orders until it shows that the necessary programs and reforms are being provided to all at-risk students to ensure that they have the opportunity to be college and career ready.”
Wilson granted plaintiffs the right to collect more evidence from the state, including documents that normally would not be available for public access.
While he did not order the state to create a specific plan or approach, he said he might consider such an order in the future.
That was five years ago.
Governor Lujan Grisham boasts of her leadership.
But she has had five Secretaries of Education in six years – a Trumpian-type turnover – evidencing a lack of competence from the top down.
The Public Education Department has been rudder-less for much of her administration.
And she has made promises of building the best education system in America … including her “moonshot for education.”
But as Wilhelmina Yazzie, the mother of one of the children represented in the lawsuit, wrote in response to an editorial in the Santa Fe New Mexican,
“Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham has said she wants a “moonshot for education.” As the lead plaintiff in the Yazzie/Martinez v. state of New Mexico lawsuit, I, too, dream of a moonshot for my children and for all of New Mexico’s children. I am of the Diné (Navajo) tribe and we view our children as “sacred.” They are the heart of our existence, and it is our responsibility to prepare them for iiná, what we call “life” in my language.“
The Governor has had more than six years to fix a morally corrupt system that continues to harm children who have been denied their equal rights to education as defined by the New Mexico Constitution.
She has failed.
But more notably, children are the victims of her failure.
As the U.S. Supreme Court did in Brown v. The Board of Education in 1955, Judge Wilson needs to act because the rest of state government is sitting on their unspoken prejudices.
He needs to force a plan for the children represented in Yazzie Martinez.
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