In Gallup-McKinley County Schools, Native American and Hispanic students are suspended more often and for longer than their white classmates for similar offenses, a New Mexico Attorney General’s Office investigation found. This is a pattern of “significant racial disparities,” he said.
A 47-page report released last week by the state Department of Justice found that Native American students lose eight to 10 times as many school days due to out-of-school suspensions as white students, while Hispanic students lose three to four times as many.
Gallup-McKinley is a vast school district that is twice the size of Delaware, straddles parts of the Navajo Nation, and has the largest Native American student population of any public school district in the nation.
The investigation was ordered by state Attorney General Raul Torres in 2023 after New Mexico in Depth and ProPublica exposed the district’s harsh punishment rates for Native American and Hispanic children. News outlets reported that Native American students in New Mexico are expelled far more frequently than other groups. The district is home to a quarter of New Mexico’s Native students, but accounted for at least three-quarters of Native student expulsions in the four school years ending in 2020.
This difference was evident even in kindergarten and elementary school grades, where more ambiguous violations such as “disorderly conduct” were observed.
At the time, former district Superintendent Mike Hiatt called the news reports “completely false” and suggested the findings were the result of the district’s own data entry errors and broader purges.
But state Justice Department investigators said in a report last week that neither explanation explains the racial disparities. Hyatt has retired and could not be reached for comment.
Their report calls on Gallup-McKinley officials to “recognize the facts” and work with the community “to correct the overreliance on exclusionary and discriminatory discipline.”
Among the report’s recommendations: District officials should clearly define the scope of violations and penalties, make penalties proportional and limit suspensions. The report also called on Gallup-McKinley to adopt restorative justice alternatives, such as talking circles, where students discuss how their misconduct affected others, why they broke school rules, and other choices they could have made instead. The Navajo Nation Human Rights Commission called for similar reforms in its March 2026 report on discrimination at Gallup-McKinley. Committee Chairwoman Wendy Greeyes noted in an interview that nearby school districts already have such alternatives in place, but the district may have difficulty building trust with students and their families.
Until the district corrects its discipline policies, the researchers wrote, “children in and around Gallup, along with their families and communities, will continue to be negatively impacted by the educational, social, and emotional challenges resulting from the district’s current practices.”
The harm goes beyond academics: out-of-school suspensions prevent students from accessing free meals or participating in extracurricular clubs or volunteer activities, investigators wrote.
According to the report, national studies show that suspensions and expulsions are associated with lower academic performance, higher risk of contact with the criminal justice system, isolation, poorer health and lower wages.
Investigators also called on the district to create a clear grievance process that is easy for students and families to use, and to publish regular audits of discipline data.
After New Mexico in Depth and ProPublica released their 2023 report, the district provided contract auditors with disciplinary data that was “inexplicably different” from what it reported to the state and the U.S. Department of Education, and thousands of disciplinary records were missing, state Department of Justice investigators found. The news organization’s own coverage of the audit failed to verify the district’s claims that out-of-school suspensions had decreased dramatically.
“Leadership has taken no steps to correct these problems, denying their existence, and pushing forward misleading and flawed opposing analyses,” the AG’s new report says.
In addition to school district reform, the new report called on state lawmakers and the New Mexico Department of Public Instruction to increase oversight of student discipline across the state. State-level audits should be conducted at least once a year and should be made public.
Anjana Samant, one of the report’s authors and the state’s deputy attorney general, said such audits are needed to prevent disparities from becoming “as extreme and systematic as the Gallup-McKinley case.”
State departments of education should also require students who are suspended or expelled to receive instruction and other educational services while out of school. Department spokeswoman Janelle Garcia said the department is reviewing the report.
In addition to making specific disciplinary policy changes, the new report urged state lawmakers to reconsider legislation that would give the Legislature stronger investigative tools to “identify and root out” civil rights violations. The bill was passed in 2023, but Democratic Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham killed it without her signature with a so-called pocket veto.
In an email Wednesday, the governor’s press secretary supported the governor’s decision, saying it is unclear whether the bill’s new powers would “override federal student privacy protections and allow the AG to access sensitive student records.”
What is important now is to ensure that the report’s findings are acted upon quickly, wrote Michael Coleman, director of communications at Lujan Grisham.
Gallup-McKinley Superintendent Givanna Hanks II told New Mexico in Depth and ProPublica that the district is considering the report’s recommendations.
“I am in a period of transition that prioritizes community voices and refocuses on all students,” Hanks wrote in an email provided by a public relations firm hired by the district. “The district will use this report and current student data as part of its review. Our focus is on students attending school, receiving support in school, and being treated equitably in school.”
