N.M. Stat. § 28-1-2 (2026)

As used in the Human Rights Act:

    A. "person" means one or more individuals, a partnership, association, organization,
corporation, joint venture, legal representative, trustees, receivers, or the state and all of
its political subdivisions;

    B. "employer" means any person employing four or more persons and any person
acting for an employer;

   C. "commission" means the human rights commission;

    D. "director" or "bureau" means the human rights bureau of the labor relations
division of the workforce solutions department;

  E. "employee" means any person in the employ of an employer or an applicant for
employment;

    F. "labor organization" means any organization that exists for the purpose in whole
or in part of collective bargaining or of dealing with employers concerning grievances,
terms or conditions of employment or of other mutual aid or protection in connection
with employment;

   G. "employment agency" means any person regularly undertaking with or without
compensation to procure opportunities to work or to procure, recruit or refer employees;

   H. "public accommodation" means any governmental entity or 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;
   I. "public contractor" means a person who receives public funds as a result of
contracting with a governmental entity;

   J. "political subdivision" means any:

       (1)    county;

       (2)    incorporated city, town or village;

       (3)    drainage, conservancy, irrigation, water and sanitation or other district;

       (4)    mutual domestic association;

       (5)    public water cooperative association; or

       (6)    community ditch association;

   K. "housing accommodation" means any building or portion of a building that is
constructed or to be constructed, which is used or intended for use as the residence or
sleeping place of any individual;

    L. "real property" means lands, leaseholds or commercial or industrial buildings,
whether constructed or to be constructed, offered for sale or rent, and any land rented
or leased for the use, parking or storage of house trailers;

   M. "secretary" means the secretary of workforce solutions;

   N. "unlawful discriminatory practices" means those unlawful practices and acts
specified in Section 28-1-7 NMSA 1978;

   O. "physical or mental disability" means a physical or mental impairment that
substantially limits one or more of a person's major life activities. A person is also
considered to have a mental or physical disability if the person has a record of a
physical or mental disability or is regarded as having a physical or mental disability;

  P. "major life activities" means functions such as caring for one's self, performing
manual tasks, walking, seeing, hearing, speaking, breathing, learning and working;

  Q. "applicant for employment" means a person applying for a position as an
employee;

    R. "sex" means a person's categorization as male, female or intersex based on
biology, physiology and physical characteristics;

    S. "sexual orientation" means a person's physical, romantic or emotional attraction
to persons of the same or a different gender or the absence of any such attraction;
   T. "gender identity" means a person's self-perception, based on the person's
appearance, behavior or physical characteristics, that the person exhibits more
masculinity or femininity or the absence of masculinity or femininity whether or not it
matches the person's gender or sex assigned at birth;

  U. "gender" means an individual or societal expectation or perception of a person as
masculine or feminine based on appearance, behavior or physical characteristics;

   V. "reasonable accommodation" means modification or adaptation of the work
environment, work schedule, work rules or job responsibilities, and reached through
good faith efforts to explore less restrictive or less expensive alternatives to enable an
employee to perform the essential functions of the job and that does not impose an
undue hardship on the employer;

   W. "undue hardship" means an accommodation requiring significant difficulty or
expense when considered in light of the following factors:

       (1)    the nature and cost of the accommodation;

      (2)   the financial resources of the employer involved in the provision of the
reasonable accommodation;

       (3)    the number of persons the employer employs;

       (4)    the effect of the accommodation on expenses and resources;

      (5)     the impact of the accommodation otherwise upon the employer's
business;

       (6)    the overall financial resources of the employer;

      (7)    the overall size of the business of an employer with respect to the number,
type and location of its facilities;

      (8)    the type of operation of the employer, including the composition, structure
and functions of the workforce of the employer; or

      (9)    the geographic separateness or administrative or fiscal relationship to the
employer of the employer's facilities;

   X. "cultural or religious headdresses" includes hijabs, head wraps or other
headdresses used as part of an individual's personal cultural or religious beliefs;

    Y. "protective hairstyles" includes such hairstyles as braids, locs, twists, tight coils
or curls, cornrows, bantu knots, afros, weaves, wigs or head wraps;
   Z. "race" includes traits historically associated with race, including hair texture,
length of hair, protective hairstyles or cultural or religious headdresses;

   AA.       "state" means the state of New Mexico or any of its agencies,
departments, boards, instrumentalities or institutions;

   BB.        "governmental entity" means the state or any public body;

   CC.        "public body" means a state or local government, an advisory board, a
commission, an agency or an entity created by the constitution of New Mexico or any
branch of government that receives public funding, including political subdivisions,
special tax districts, school districts and institutions of higher education;

   DD.        "services" means any function, program, activity or benefit; and

    EE.       "military status" means a person's active membership in the armed forces
or state defense force or being a veteran of the armed forces or state defense force and
includes a spouse or child of an active member or veteran of the armed forces or state
defense force.

History: 1953 Comp., § 4-33-2, enacted by Laws 1969, ch. 196, § 2; 1973, ch. 155, § 1;
1978 Comp., 28-1-2; 1983, ch. 241, § 1; 1987, ch. 76, § 1; 1987, ch. 342, § 16; 1993,
ch. 268, § 1; 2003, ch. 383, § 1; 2007, ch. 200, § 17; 2020, ch. 49, § 1; 2021, ch. 19, §
3; 2021, ch. 37, § 3; 2023, ch. 29, § 1; 2024, ch. 21, § 4.

                                     ANNOTATIONS

The 2024 amendment, effective May 15, 2024, defined "military status"; and added
Subsection EE.

The 2023 amendment, effective June 16, 2023, revised the definition of "public
accommodation," rewrote the definitions of "sexual orientation" and "gender identity,"
and defined "public contractor," "political subdivision," "sex," "gender," "state,"
"governmental entity," "public body," and "services"; in Subsection H, after "means",
added "any governmental entity"; added new Subsections I and J and redesignated
former Subsections I through O as Subsections K through Q, respectively; in
Subsection O, substituted "handicap" with "disability" throughout the subsection, and
after "also considered to", deleted "be physically or mentally handicapped" and added
"have a mental or physical disability"; deleted former Subsections P and Q; added new
Subsections R through U and redesignated former Subsections R through V as
Subsections V through Z, respectively; and added Subsections AA through DD.

The 2021 amendment, effective July 1, 2021, defined "cultural or religious
headdresses", "protective hairstyles", and "race" as used in the Human Rights Act;
added new Subsections T through V.
The 2020 amendment, effective May 20, 2020, defined "reasonable accommodation"
and "undue hardship" as used in the Human Rights Act, and added Subsections R and
S.

The 2007 amendment, effective July 1, 2007, defined "bureau" as the human rights
bureau of the labor relations division of the workforce solutions department and
"secretary" as the secretary of workforce solutions.

The 2003 amendment, effective July 1, 2003, in Subsection M, substituted "a person's"
for "an individual's" preceding "major life activities", substituted "A person" for "An
individual" preceding "is also considered"; and added Subsections P and Q.

The 1993 amendment, effective June 18, 1993, substituted "labor department" for
"department of labor" in Subsection D.

Commercial photography business was a public accommodation. — Where
plaintiff offered photography services to the public on a commercial basis and solicited
customers by offering its services to the public at large through its website,
advertisements on multiple search engines, and in the Yellow Pages; and plaintiff did
not participate in selective advertising, such as telephone solicitation, or in any way
seek to target a select group of people through its advertisements, plaintiff constituted a
public accommodation under the Human Rights Act, Section 28-1-1 NMSA 1978 et seq.
Elane Photography, LLC v. Willock, 2012-NMCA-086, 284 P.3d 428, cert. granted,
2012-NMCERT-008.

University of New Mexico is not a "public accommodation" within the meaning of
the New Mexico Human Rights Act, and is not subject to the jurisdiction of the human
rights commission in the instance of a nursing student's complaint of racial
discrimination. Human Rights Comm'n v. Board of Regents, 1981-NMSC-026, 95 N.M.
576, 624 P.2d 518, overruled by Johnson v. Bd. of Educ. for Albuquerque Pub. Schs.,
2025-NMSC-014.

Public schools are public accommodations and are therefore subject to the New
Mexico Human Rights Act. — The New Mexico Human Rights Act (NMHRA) defines
"public accommodations" as "any establishment that provides or offers its services,
facilities, accommodations or goods to the public," and therefore public schools can be
classified as public accommodations under the NMHRA because public schools are
institutions that not only offer services to all school age children but also collaborate with
their families and communities, and therefore embrace the plain language of the statute
that a public school is an establishment that provides or offers its services to the public.
Johnson v. Bd. of Educ. for Albuquerque Pub. Schs., 2025-NMSC-014, aff'g 2023-
NMCA-069, 535 P.3d 687 and overruling Human Rights Comm'n of New Mexico v. Bd.
of Regents of Univ. of N.M. College of Nursing, 1981-NMSC-026, 95 N.M. 576, 624
P.2d 518.
Public secondary schools are public accommodations subject to the New Mexico
Human Rights Act. — Albuquerque public schools offer services to the community as
a whole such that refusing educational services based on race, religion, or any other
protected category would contravene legislative intent under NMSA 1978, § 28-1-7(F),
and therefore public secondary schools are public accommodations subject to the New
Mexico Human Rights Act. Johnson v. Bd. of Educ., 2023-NMCA-069, cert. granted.

Where plaintiff, a sixteen-year-old Native American student enrolled in a public high
school in Albuquerque, New Mexico, filed a complaint alleging a violation of the New
Mexico Human Rights Act, NMSA 1978, §§ 28-1-1 to 28-1-15, against defendants, after
plaintiff's English teacher, during an in-classroom Halloween activity, cut several inches
of hair from another Native American student and asked that student if she were a
"bloody Indian" and where defendants filed a motion to dismiss, arguing that public
secondary schools are not public accommodations in the administration of their
academic programs, the district court erred in granting defendants' motion for summary
judgment, because a state-created public school enacting its constitutional mandate to
educate school-age children falls within the definition of "public accommodation" as
intended by the legislature. Johnson v. Bd. of Educ., 2023-NMCA-069, cert. granted.

Meaning of "places of accommodation" in former law. — Single dwellings, duplexes
and apartment buildings, being in their nature distinctly private, were not "places of
accommodation" as defined in the Civil Rights Act, 49-8-1 to 49-8-7, 1953 Comp. (now
repealed), and consequently the restrictions against discrimination did not apply thereto.
1963 Op. Att'y Gen. No. 63-150 (opinion rendered under prior law).

Law reviews. — For note and comment, "New Tort Rules Unmarried Partners: The
Enhanced Potential for Successful Loss of Consortium and NIED Claims by Same Sex
Partners in New Mexico After Lozoya", see 34 N.M.L. Rev. 461 (2004).

For comment, "Public Accommodations in New Mexico: The Right to Refuse Service for
Reasons Other Than Race or Religion," see 10 Nat. Resources J. 635 (1970).

For article, "Age Discrimination in Employment: A Comparison of the Federal and State
Laws and Remedies in New Mexico," see 7 N.M.L. Rev. 51 (1976-77).

For note, "Human Rights Commission v. Board of Regents: Should a University be
Considered a Public Accommodation Under the New Mexico Human Rights Act"? see
12 N.M.L. Rev. 541 (1982).

Am. Jur. 2d, A.L.R. and C.J.S. references. — What constitutes private club or
association not otherwise open to public that is exempt from state civil rights statute, 83
A.L.R.5th 467.

Meaning of term "employer" as defined in § 701(b) of Title VII of Civil Rights Act of
1964, as amended (42 USCS § 2000e(b)), 69 A.L.R. Fed. 191.
Who is "employer" within meaning of Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967 (29
USCS § 621 et seq.), 137 A.L.R. Fed. 551.

What constitutes religious harassment in employment in violation of Title VII of Civil
Rights Act of 1964 (42 USCA § 2000e et seq.), 149 A.L.R. Fed. 405.

What constitutes reverse or majority race or national origin discrimination violative of
federal constitution or statutes - nonemployment cases, 152 A.L.R. Fed. 1