On Monday, July 6, University of New Mexico Provost Barbara Rodriguez announced the reappointment of School of Law Dean Camille Carey, who will be serving her second term as dean of the school.
Carey’s current term will conclude on June 30, 2027, and her second term will last for three years, beginning July 1, 2027, and ending on June 30, 2030, according to a statement from Rodriquez.
Rodriguez wrote that deans normally serve five-year terms, which may be renewable by the provost after consultation with “faculty, leadership, and others at the provost’s discretion.”
“Deans and other senior academic leaders are subject to annual evaluations of their performance and serve at the pleasure of the provost,” the statement reads.
Carey began her first term in 2022 and has sparked controversy toward the end of her term, when some students, faculty and alumni raised concerns about her leadership, including admissions, enrollment demographics, faculty retention and handling student grievances.
“I am committed to supporting Dean Carey in advancing the School’s priorities while working collaboratively with faculty, staff, students, alumni, and our legal community partners to build on the School's strengths," Rodriguez said in a UNM press release.
On June 28, members of the University of New Mexico School of Law 2025-2026 admissions committee wrote a letter to UNM President Steve Goldstein and Rodriguez, defending Carey’s administration and addressing some of the admissions-related concerns raised by the UNM law community, including low numbers of New Mexican students and the influence of LSAT scores in admissions decisions.
The letter states that the School of Law applicant pool has been affected by the “same national trends reshaping legal education everywhere,” and reflects New Mexico’s demographic shifts, population changes, and the national “enrollment cliff.”
According to the letter, the School of Law received 214 New Mexico resident applications for the 2025 entering class, which was up from 167 the previous year, and of the 296 currently-enrolled law students, 266 are in-state residents, including those who established residency after enrollment.
The letter states that the School of Law admissions policy requires a “holistic review” of applicants, and that the policy has remained intact despite the United States Supreme Court's decisions in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard and SFFA v. University of North Carolina — a 2023 decision ruling that race-based affirmative action programs violate the Equal Protection Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
“We consider the full range of who a person is: academic achievement, life experience, Tribal affiliation, commitment to public service, obstacles overcome, and the potential to contribute to the profession and the communities that need them,” the letter reads.
UNM School of Law professor Mark-Tizoc Gonzàlez said that he has some critiques of the SFFA ruling, which keeps race considerations in higher education admissions “off the table,” noting that tribal membership is a political status, rather than a racial one.
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“At the level of law, it's really important to understand that Students for Fair Admission does not say that you cannot consider people's political status, in particular their tribal citizenship or tribal membership,” Gonzàlez said.
On June 28, UNM Law professors Emeriti Richard Gonzales, Thedore Parnall, Leo Romero and Robert Schwartz published an op-ed in the Albuquerque Journal in defense of Carey, writing that an applicant’s race or ethnicity is hidden from the admissions committee.
Gonzàlez said he thinks hiding an applicant’s race until after decisions have been made “goes farther than it needs to,” and that targeted outreach to particular rural counties in New Mexico is not about race and therefore SFFA should not apply.
“Then you have universities and University council in particular who are saying, ‘how can we avoid litigation? How can we avoid Department of Justice investigations? How can we basically survive this period without threatening our federal funding?’” Gonzàlez said. “So all those are very real concerns, and I respect my colleagues who are trying to make those hard decisions.”
Schwartz, a former regent who supports Carey, told the Daily Lobo that he thinks no student should get into any University program except on merrit, saying that what he sees as the biggest problem is the “division” among faculty at the law school, and the fact that some have publicly tried to resolve problems, including through the legislature.
“I don't know if there are problems, but normally the way you resolve that is you come to the faculty, and the faculty resolve it,” Schwartz said.
Gonzalez said he thinks it’s up to the faculty to work together to address, “rather than sweep under the rug,” the various criticisms of the School of Law that have been brought to light.
“If some of those criticisms are unfair, then we should probably shine light, and do some community education, and do some community building, so that we can get everybody on the same page and figure out how to move forward together,” Gonzalez said. “But if some of those criticisms are accurate, then we should address them.”
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on X @paloma_chapa88
Paloma Chapa is the multimedia editor for the Daily Lobo. She can be reached at multimedia@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @paloma_chapa88
