Abstract
Education has long been regarded as the foundation of a strong society and fundamental to an individual’s ability to determine the course of their own life. Article XII of the New Mexico Constitution asserts that all students in New Mexico have a right to not just an education but one that is “sufficient.” However, in 2018, a state district court found that at-risk students across New Mexico were being denied that right. In Martinez/Yazzie v. State of New Mexico, the court ordered the State to quickly provide more funding for education and accountability mechanisms to ensure that money was spent properly while extending significant deference to the legislative and executive branches in determining how best to do so. This order, however, did not lead to a constitutionally sufficient education system in New Mexico. Five years later, students across the state continue to struggle. Test scores remain low and the future of education in our state remains uncertain. How should the court respond to these ongoing violations as it continues to exercise jurisdiction over the defendants? This Note first considers how the court’s initial decision and order fits into the history of education litigation and analyzes how that order set New Mexico up for uncertain progress towards improving education in the state. Then, it evaluates how the court can create a more workable definition of the constitutional right to education and order a stronger remedy to resolve the ongoing violation of that right.
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 International License.
Recommended Citation
Griffin Arellano,
Action is Not Activism: Moving Martinez/Yazzie v. State Forward,
53
N.M. L. Rev.
453
(2023).
Available at:
https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/nmlr/vol53/iss2/6
