UNM eyes policy changes to fall in line with federal guidelines

The University of New Mexico is fast-tracking changes to language in policies around major events, recruitment and hiring, equal opportunity and sexual misconduct to comply with federal guidelines.

The school notified students and faculty of the changes in an email sent out earlier in the week and gave them until Friday to comment. Typically, 30 days of notice are given before a policy is changed.

The proposed changes include striking the words “affirmative action” from the recruitment and hiring policy, adding six sections and requiring six weeks of notice instead of 10 days to the major events policy, getting rid of the affirmative action section and the word “discrimination” in the equal opportunity policy and also taking out “discrimination” and swapping the word “assault” for “misconduct” in the title of the sexual misconduct policy.

“After the period of public comment, revisions to the proposed policies may be made. Final drafts are then circulated to key administrators and approved by the UNM president,” according to UNM spokesperson Cinnamon Blair. She said the policy revisions are intended to “ensure that UNM’s employment practices — including opportunities, hiring, promotion, retention, and pay — are equitable, fair, and non-discriminatory, and consistent with applicable law.”

The departments involved in the drafted changes were the Office of University Counsel, Human Resources, the Office of Compliance, Ethics and Equal Opportunity and the UNM Policy Office.

“UNM is walking a tightrope here, walking a very fine line as we work to meet compliance while also upholding the values of the UNM community,” Cristyn Elder, faculty senate president and member of the United Academics of the University of New Mexico, told the Journal.

UNM has drawn the ire of the new presidential administration already. On March 15, the Trump administration announced a civil rights investigation by the U.S. Department of Education against UNM’s main campus and 44 other universities for participating in diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.

“Unfortunately, the process was rushed and when these policies were sent out for comment, there wasn’t enough contextualization or contextualizing of why these policies are being revised,” Elder said. “It’s easy to see the work that went into striking language. It’s more difficult to see the invisible labor that has gone into maintaining language from the original policies.”

The proposed changes to the policy on major events concern Marc-Tizoc González, law professor and UA-UNM member, who worries the changes are intended to hinder protests on campus from occurring.

“I’m very concerned about this policy, and it seems to me that the university leadership is making the wrong choices at this moment in time, particularly at this moment in time,” González told the Journal.

The changes to the major events policy were made after Turning Point USA’s UNM chapter challenged the existing policy as being unconstitutional, to allow time for security assessments to be conducted and additionally eliminate the security fees previously charged to student organizations, according to Blair.

Blair added that “speech activities” — which appears to include protests — can take place without advance notice as long as they comply with university guidelines.

González also expressed concern about UNM changing its policies to appease the Trump administration.

“This person is ... only going to be president for a certain period of time, the Congress may well change in a shorter period than that,” González said. “These are hard times, but this is not the time to capitulate.”