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The lawsuit from a New Mexico open records watchdog agency to compel the University of New Mexico and New Mexico State University to release documents showing how much public money is being spent to pay college athletes will proceed.

State District Judge Elaine Lujan on Tuesday denied a joint motion from the state's two most high profile universities asking to dismiss a lawsuit filed in September by the New Mexico Foundation for Open Government concerning the schools' denial of public records requests for documents, essentially, showing who is getting paid, how much has been paid and what the terms of the student/university agreements for the payments are.

sa国际传媒官网网页入口 attorney and journalist Nick Nu帽ez has joined NMFOG in its lawsuit against NMSU. He is not involved in the aspects of the suit pertaining to UNM.

Such information is public record for all other state employees and contractors receiving public money from the universities, and since the 2025 House Settlement that opened the door for college to pay athletes, neither UNM nor NMSU has denied they are using public funds to do so.

In recent weeks at UNM, for example, Lobo basketball player Tomislav Buljan transferred away from the team for a reported payday of more than $2 million but New Mexico taxpayers aren鈥檛 sure if he is still getting paid by UNM since he is a student through the end of the semester. 

Maybe more intriguing for some is the return of Lobo freshman Jake Hall after rumors of being offered $2 million to $3 million by other schools. How much did Hall get to come back? Does the public have a right to know if it was public money that helped secure his return? 

Both UNM and NMSU, and frankly schools across the country facing similar legal challenges, claim the information doesn't have to be released because the universities fall under Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) exemptions and/or they would be exempt because releasing the information would give away trade secrets that could hurt the university.

Broadly claiming FERPA for any matter or document pertaining to a student or simply saying a document would reveal trade secrets doesn't cut it, said NMFOG's response and oral arguments in Tuesday's hearing from attorney Greg Williams. Citing specific exemptions, Williams noted, puts the burden of proving why the documents meet those exemptions on the custodian of the public document.

Neither UNM nor NMSU did more than claim the documents should be exempt, but neither clarified why they qualified for FERPA or trade secret protections.

"If a party is going to assert that a document is an education record under FERPA, or that a document is a trade secret and therefore protected, the court certainly cannot make that determination without at least some information about the record and the circumstances in which it was created, what it contains, etc.," Williams said.

The Court on Tuesday didn't take a stand on those issues, instead basically ruling the case isn't going to be dismissed.

One question that will certainly be addressed as the case moves forward will be whether the documents can be released in their entirety, with names and identifiers redacted or whether they do, in fact, fall under such exemptions.

For now, the plaintiffs contend, UNM and NMSU are simply going with a "trust us" approach in explaining why the contracts don't need to be released.

For now, the Court isn't letting that stand.

"The court is not convinced ... that all the documents that have been requested and denied are protected under FERPA," Lujan said in her ruling. "The motion (to dismiss by UNM and NMSU) was painted with a broad stroke. It said, essentially, that all of the these documents are protected under FERPA. ... Clearly, not all the documents are protected under FERPA, but even the ones that (UNM's attorney) identified today as being specifically protected under FERPA, the court is not convinced on the application of the law.

"In other words, the court is not able to say, even with respect to the NIL documents, that they are protected as a matter of law under FERPA. And I will just point out that plaintiffs have raised a provision in FERPA that does not bar the release of records if a student's personally identifiable information is redacted."

The judge later addressed the second exemption the schools cited in denying the records requests.

"With respect to trade secrets," Lujan said, "Even taking plaintiff's allegations as true, the court is not able to say that the information requested constitutes a trade secret. As I indicated earlier, more factual development needs to happen before the court can make that determination, and so for those reasons, the court is denying the defendant's joint motion for dismissal."

A date for the next step in the case has not been set.

Nu帽ez vs. NMSU

The suit against UNM is NMFOG鈥檚 alone. The one against NMSU is joined by Nu帽ez, an sa国际传媒官网网页入口 attorney and reporter with the Pit Press, an sa国际传媒官网网页入口-based media company that covers UNM Lobo athletics.

Nu帽ez requested records from both schools but is only suing NMSU because it initially denied his request by telling him in writing the records didn't exist. His motion that NMSU be sanctioned for 鈥渨rongful denial鈥� was denied.

"NMSU in this case made a mistake," Lujan said, adding, "I'm not convinced, however, that there was a willful misstatement of fact or that NMSU鈥檚 conduct otherwise rises to the level necessitating the imposition of Rule 11 sanctions."

As for the portion of the case that will now go to trial, Nu帽ez鈥檚 attorney Johnn Osborn certainly viewed Tuesday's hearing as a win.

"A records custodian鈥檚 duty to thoroughly and diligently search for responsive documents is a cornerstone of IPRA," said Osborn in a statement emailed to the Journal after the hearing. "This requirement safeguards the public鈥檚 right to access the greatest amount of information possible from public institutions, including state universities supported by donors, fans, and New Mexico taxpayers.

"By denying the Motion to Dismiss, Judge Lujan鈥檚 ruling allows Plaintiff Nunez to move forward with his claims and seek to hold NMSU accountable for complying with its obligations under IPRA."

Disclosure: Journal Assistant Managing Editor Lucas Peerman is on the NMFOG board of directors. He did not have a role in writing or editing this story.

Reach Geoff Grammer at ggrammer@abqjournal.com or follow him on Twitter (X) .