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Date: 03-20-2023
Case Style:
De Anza Angel Dimas v. Pecos Independent School District Board of Education, et al.
Case Number: 1:21-CV-00978
Judge: Kea W. Riggs
Court: United States District Court for the District of New Mexico (Bernalillo County)
Plaintiff's Attorney:
Defendant's Attorney: Carios M. Quinones
Description: Albuquerque, New Mexico civil rights lawyers represented Plaintiff who sued Defendants claiming that they violated her constitutional rights
This case is a civil rights suit arising from Plaintiff De Anza Dimas' claims that she faced discriminatory treatment while a high school student because of her sexual orientation. In 2019, Plaintiff was a senior student attending Pecos High School and was a member of the girls' basketball team. Plaintiff was in a same-sex relationship with another member of the team.
On January 4, 2019, Plaintiff, her girlfriend, and other members of the girls' basketball and cheerleading teams were on a bus and scheduled to depart for a basketball tournament. Id. Before departing, Defendant Michael Flores, Athletic Coordinator for Pecos High School, asked Plaintiff and her girlfriend to exit the bus. Outside the bus doors, Defendant Flores questioned Plaintiff and her girlfriend, and asked Plaintiff whether she “thought it was appropriate for her to be sitting in the same bus seat with her same-sex girlfriend.” Defendant Flores informed Plaintiff that “students involved in dating relationships could not sit together on the bus or cohabit the same rooms during overnight trips.” Defendant Flores then allowed Plaintiff to return to the bus, where other students asked Plaintiff “why she had been taken outside, separated, and asked to sit elsewhere.” Plaintiff alleges that as a result of Defendant Flores' public inquiry, she was “highly humiliated, disrespected, and distressed at being forcibly ‘outed' before her teammates and the other students.”
After this incident, Plaintiff wrote a complaint to school administrators and informed them of the conversation initiated by Defendant Flores. In response, on January 9, 2019, Defendant Fred Trujillo, Superintendent of the Pecos Independent School District, informed Plaintiff of the school's policy of “separating students based on dating relationships.” Shortly after receipt of this letter, Plaintiff and her mother attended a meeting with Defendant Trujillo, Defendant Flores, and the Principal of Pecos High School, where Plaintiff and her mother stated their belief that “the unwritten procedure [of separating students] was unfairly singling out LGBTQ+[1] students, and [was] not being enforced against opposite gender couples throughout the district.”
Plaintiff alleges that there was an “ongoing monitoring of the students' personal relationships” by Defendant Flores, which had a “chilling effect on Plaintiff Dimas and her family and other similarly situated LGBTQ+ students.” Id. ⁋ 31 Within a week of the incident, the assistant basketball coach approached Plaintiff and informed her that Defendant Flores continued to require him to enforce the policy of separating students based on their personal relationships. Months later, in April 2019, the high school softball coach initiated two conversations with Plaintiff whereby he mentioned that Defendant Flores continued to require coaches to enforce the separation of students during “away games, ” but this coach stated he would not enforce the policy. Plaintiff graduated from high school shortly after, but asserts that the Pecos Independent School District did not stop enforcing the “discriminatory procedure” until August 30, 2019.
As a result of these events, Plaintiff filed suit in the Fourth Judicial District Court, San Miguel County, State of New Mexico against Defendants Pecos Independent School District, Pecos High School, and Defendants Flores and Trujillo. Plaintiff alleges the following:
Count I: Violation of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, 20 U.S.C. § 1681 et seq.; against all Defendants
Count II: Violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Deprivation of Procedural and Substantive Due Process and Equal Protection; against all Defendants
Count III: Violation of 42 U.S.C. § 1983 for Failure to Train and Supervise as to Discriminatory Enforcement of School Policy; against Pecos Independent School District Board of Education and Fred Trujillo
Count IV: Violation of the New Mexico Constitution Art. II, § 18; against all Defendants
Count V: Violation of the New Mexico Human Rights Act, NMSA § 28-1-7; against all Defendants
Count VI: State Law Tort Claim for Invasion of Privacy; against all Defendants
Defendants removed this case to this Court (Doc. 1) and subsequently filed a motion for partial judgment on the pleadings. Doc. 21.
Angel Dimas v. Pecos Indep. Sch. Dist. Bd. of Educ. (D. N.M. 2022)
Outcome: Case dismissed on qualified immunity grounds.
Plaintiff's Experts:
Defendant's Experts:
Comments: