Supreme Court rules that anti-discrimination law applies to public schools and public universities
SANTA FE – Public schools and universities may be sued for discriminatory conduct under the New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMHRA), the state Supreme Court ruled today.
In a unanimous opinion, New Mexico’s highest court concluded that public schools and public universities are a place of “public accommodation” under terms of the state’s anti-discrimination law.
The ruling allows a lawsuit to move forward by a Native American student, McKenzie Johnson, who was allegedly called a “bloody Indian” by a high school teacher in Albuquerque during a class on Halloween in 2018. Johnson, who was 16 years old at the time, was dressed in a costume and had fake blood on her cheek.
The incident occurred after the teacher allegedly cut off part of the braided hair of another Native American student. Johnson sued Albuquerque Public Schools and the teacher, but the case was dismissed by a district court.
Today’s ruling by the justices affirmed a decision of the state Court of Appeals, which reversed the district court.
“The holding of this opinion is firmly grounded in the plain language of the NMHRA. However, the statute’s history and background demonstrate that the Legislature intended for public schools to be public accommodations and therefore in some ways accountable under the NMHRA,” the Court wrote in an opinion by Chief Justice David K. Thomson.
In reaching its conclusions, the Court also broadened the coverage of the Human Rights Act to public universities. The justices overturned a decades-old precedential decision that a public university was not a public accommodation in the “manner and method of administering its academic program.”
A 1981 opinion by the state Supreme Court – in the case Human Rights Commission of New Mexico v. Board of Regents of University of New Mexico College of Nursing – is “inconsistent with the plain language of the statute and is unsupported by precedent or legislative history,” the justices explained.
“Based on our plain language interpretation of the statute, the Regents Court erred in determining, ‘Universities are not public accommodations,”’ the Court wrote.
The Human Rights Act, at the time of the lawsuit, defined public accommodation as “any establishment that provides or offers its services, facilities, accommodations or goods to the public, but does not include a bona fide private club or other place or establishment that is by its nature and use distinctly private.”
The Legislature changed the anti-discrimination law in 2023 to apply it to “any governmental entity,” but the case before the Supreme Court involved statutory provisions in effect when Johnson brought her legal claims.
The Court explained that the “sole exception to the broadly worded definition of public accommodation is inapplicable to the facts” of the case because public schools do not restrict their services in a way that makes their use private.
The state constitution mandates that public schools in New Mexico be open to all children, the Court noted, and a constitutional provision specifically protects the right of “children of Spanish descent” to attend public schools.
“The NMHRA’s protections against numerous forms of discrimination must be read against the backdrop of this state’s unfortunate history of race-based discrimination, including that history transpiring within our public schools. The intent to prohibit discrimination in public schools has been apparent since the inception of statehood,” the Court wrote.
Despite constitutional protections, the Court explained, “New Mexico schools have been used to further efforts of assimilation and cultural erasure among Native American and Hispanic children.”
The Legislature enacted the Human Rights Act, the Court wrote, “to address the effects of New Mexico’s past and to further the Act’s purpose to ‘eliminate and prevent discrimination on the basis of race’ in the future.”
Part of the NMHRA directs the state Workforce Solution Department’s Labor Relations Division, in cooperation with school districts and the Public Education Department, to “encourage an educational program for all residents of the state, calculated to eliminate prejudice, its harmful effects and its incompatibility with principles of fair play, equality and justice.”
The Court wrote, “Therefore, the Legislature intended the NMHRA to address discrimination in public schools in an ‘endeavor to eliminate prejudice.”’
The justices heard oral arguments in the case in April in Albuquerque as part of the Court’s Rule of Law Program. The Court travels to communities around the state and invites students to attend its oral arguments to learn about the law and the role of courts.
To read the decision in Johnson v. Bd. of Educ. for Albuquerque Pub. Schs., No. S-1-SC-39961, please visit the New Mexico Compilation Commission’s website using the following link: