Margaret E. Montoya

Senior Adviser to Executive Vice President for UNM Health Sciences Center

Professor Emerita

On Leave

Education

A.B. 1972, San Diego State University
J.D. 1978, Harvard Law School

Member of the Massachusetts, New Mexico and New York Bars

UNM-DR

Contact Information

montoya@law.unm.edu

Profile

Margaret Montoya was born in Las Vegas, New Mexico to Ricardo and Virginia Montoya. She traces her ancestry to families who have been in New Mexico since it was controlled by Spain in the early 19th Century and by México until 1848.

She attended Immaculate Conception School in Las Vegas, for elementary school, and when her family moved to Albuquerque, she attended and graduated from Highland High School. After many second chances, she graduated in 1972 with her bachelor’s degree from San Diego State University.

Upon deciding to go to law school, she was the first Latina to be accepted to Harvard Law School. When she graduated with her law degree in 1978, she won the prestigious Harvard University’s Sheldon Traveling Fellowship (also won by Justice Antonin Scalia), which allowed her to travel through Europe and Asia, studying affirmative action in Malaysia and India.

Montoya has been a member of the UNM law school faculty since 1992 and has taught courses in constitutional rights, torts, contracts, clinical law and employment law, and in her seminars, she examines issues of race, ethnicity, gender, culture and language.

From 2003-2005, she was interim director of the Southwest Hispanic Research Institute, which was established in 1980 to serve as UNM’s interdisciplinary center for the study of the Hispanic experience in the Southwest.

Montoya has been working to create P-20 pipeline partnerships with the New Mexico Hispanic Bar Association, the public schools, the judiciary, nonprofits and policymakers. In 2003, a group of law students under her supervision filed an amicus brief in Grutter v. Bollinger, anaffirmative action case decided by the U.S. Supreme Court. Her work on pipeline and other health disparity issues led to her assignment as the senior adviser to the executive vice president at the UNM Health Sciences Center. She holds a secondary appointment in the center’s Department of Community and Family Health. She has been a member of the UNM School of Medicine’s admission committee for its Combined BA/MD Degree program.

Montoya’s scholarship appears in law reviews, anthologies and casebooks and is used in many high school, undergraduate, graduate and law school courses throughout the United States. Her best-known article, Mascaras, Trenzas y Greñas: Un/Masking the Self While Un/Braiding Latina Stories and Legal Discourse, connects autobiographical narratives with legal analysis and focuses on resisting the cultural assimilation that often comes with higher education.

She was the lead scholar of a comprehensive American Bar Association initiative that analyzed a broad set of information aimed at advancing racial/ethnic, gender, disability and sexual orientation diversity within the legal profession. The result of the two-year effort, “Diversity in the Legal Profession: Next Steps”, a 68-page report, was released in April 2010.

From 2004-2009, Montoya was a regular commentator on The Line, a weekly PBS television show that analyzes current events in New Mexico. She has been featured on Democracy Now, a public radio show, in connection with her portrayal of the prosecutor in a mock trial sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee from Sept. 24-26, 2005 in Washington, D.C. Click here for video and pictures of the mock trial of the prosecution of major Bush administration figures, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and former CIA Director George Tenet, “indicted” for aiding and abetting torture around the world.

Montoya has been recognized by her professional peers and by the Latina/o community for her work. In 2009, the CUNY School of Law named her the Haywood Burns Chair in Civil Rights and gave the Commencement Address. She is the recipient of the prestigious Clyde Ferguson Award, given annually by law professors of color for accomplishments in scholarship, teaching and service. Both the National Latina/o Law Students Association and UNM’s Graduate and Professional Students of Color awarded her Lifetime Achievement Awards. The New Mexico Hispano Round Table, a coalition of some 60 Hispano/Latino organizations, gave her itsWalk the Talk award. She was named by Hispanic Business Magazine to its list of Elite Latinas and also received the Kate Stoneman Award from Albany Law School for expanding opportunities for women.

She is featured in the books, Mujeres Valorosas, written by the New Mexico Hispanic Women’s Council, and Pioneering Women Lawyers, edited by Patricia E. Salkin, for the ABA Commission on Women in the Profession.

Montoya has been married to UNM Mathematics Professor Charles Boyer for 30 years. They have two daughters, Diana and Alejandra, and a stepson, Charles.

Courses

Courses Previously Taught

Contracts I
Comparative Constitutional Law
Comparative Employment Law (U.S., Mexico and Canada)
Constitutional Rights
Gender and the Law
Employment Discrimination
employment Discrimination and Critical Race Theory
Employment Law
Introduction to ADR
Latinos & the Law
Lawyers and the New and Old Media
Practicum
Race, Racism & Law
Topics in Jurisprudence: History of Legal Education and Pedagogy
Topics in Jurisprudence: LatCrit and Critical Race Theories in Action
Torts
Tribal Law Journal

Publications

Book & Book Chapters

Latinos and the Law, American Latinos and the Making of the United States: A Theme Study (2013).
Available at: UNM-DR

Guadalupe in New Mexico,Religion as Art (Steve Loza, ed., 2009).
Available at: UNM-DR

Involving Minors in Research: Law and Ethics within Multicultural Settings,Handbook of Social Research Ethics (Donna M. Mertens and Pauline Ginsberg eds., 2008) (co-authored with Dr. Luis Vargas).
Available at: UNM-DR

Celebrating Racialized Narratives, Crossroads, Trajectories and a New Critical Race Theory (Frank Valdes, Angela Harris and Jerome Culp, eds., 2002).
Available at: UNM-DR

Border/ed Identities: Narrative and the Social Construction of Personal and Collective Identities, Crossing Boundaries: Traditions and Transformations in Law and Society Research (Austin Sarat et al. eds., 1998).
Available at: UNM-DR

Gender and Law: Theory, Doctrine, Commentary (1997) (co-authored with Angela Harris and Katharine Bartlett).
Available at: UNM-DR

Beyond Portia: Women, Law and Literature in the United States (Jacqueline St. Joan & Annette Bennington McElhiney eds., 1997).
Available at: UNM-DR

Articles

HLS 200: a Latina's Story About the Bicentennial, 21 HARV. LATINX L. REV. 35 (2018).
Available at: SSRN

Narrative Braids: Performing Racial Literacy, 33 AMER. IND. L. J. 153 (2008) (co-authored with Christine Zuni Cruz and Gene Grant).
Available at: UNM-DR

"Latinas/os" and Latina/o Legal Studies: A Critical and Self-Critical Review of LatCrit Theory and Legal Models of Knowledge Production, 4 FLA. INT’L L. J. (2009) (co-authored with Francisco Valdes).
Available at: UNM-DR

Uniéndo Comunidades by Learning Lessons and Mobilizing for Change, 27 CHICANA/O-LATINA/O L. REV. 1 (2008).
Available at: UNM-DR

Latinas/os and the Politics of Knowledge Production: LatCrit Scholarship and Academic Activism as Social Justice Action, 83 INDIANA L. REV. 1197 (2008) (co-authored with Francisco Valdes) .
Available at: UNM-DR

Defending the Future Voices of Critical Race Feminism, 39 U.C. DAVIS L. REV. 1305 (2006).
Available at: UNM-DR

Antigona: A Voice Rebuking Power, 75 UMKC L. REV. 1171 (2007).
Available at: UNM-DR

LatCrit at Ten Years, 26 CHICANA/O-LATINA/O L. REV. 1 (2006).
Available at: UNM-DR

Who Gets In? The Quest for Diversity afterGrutter, 52 BUFFALO L. REV. 531 (2004).
Available at: UNM-DR

Un/Braiding Stories about Law, Sexuality and Morality, 24 CHICANA/O-LATINA/O L. REV. 1 (2003).
Available at: UNM-DR

The Future of Civil Rights: A Dialogue, XVII FOCUS ON LAW STUDIES (Spring 2002).
Available at: UNM-DR

A Brief History of Chicana/o School Segregation: One Rationale for Affirmative Action, 12 BERKELEY LA RAZA L.J. 159 (2002).
Available at: UNM-DR

Seeking Educational Self-Determination: Raza Studies for Revolution, 35 EQUITY AND EXCELLENCE IN EDUCATION 276 (2002) (co-authored with Marcos Pizarro).

Class in LatCrit: Theory and Praxis in a World of Economic Inequality [Foreword], 78 DENVER L. REV. 467 (2001).
Available at: UNM-DR

Silence and Silencing: Their Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Legal Communication, Pedagogy and Discourse, 33 MICH. J. L. REFORM 263 (2000).
Available at: UNM-DR

LatCrit Theory: Mapping Its Intellectual and Ideological Foundations and Future Self-Critical Directions, 53 U. MIAMI L. REV. 1119 (1999).
Available at: UNM-DR

Religious Rituals and LatCrit Theorizing, 19 CHICANA/O-LATINA/O L. REV. 417 (1998).

Academic Mestizaje: Re/Producing Clinical Teaching and Re/Framing Wills as Latina Praxis, 2 HARV. LATINO L. REV. 349 (1997).
Available at: UNM-DR

Voicing Differences (Comment), 4 CLINICAL L. REV. 147 (1997).
Available at: UNM-DR

Lines of Demarcation in a Town Called Frontera: A Review of John Sayles' 'Lone Star', 27 N.M. L. REV. 223 (1997).
Available at: NMLR

On "Subtle Prejudices," White Supremacy and Affirmative Action: A Reply to Paul Butler, 68 U. COLO. L. REV. 891 (1997).
Available at: UNM-DR

Voices/Voces in the Borderlands: A Colloquy on Re/Constructing Identities in Re/Constructed Legal Spaces, 6 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 387 (1996) (co-authored with Melissa Harrison).
Available at: UNM-DR

Border Crossings in an Age of Border Patrols: Cruzando Fronteras Metaforicas, 26 N.M. L. REV. 1 (1996).
Available at: NMLR

Law and Language(s): Image, Integration, and Innovation, 7 LA RAZA L.J. 1 (1994).
Available at: UNM-DR

Mascaras, Trenzas, y Grenas: Un/Masking the Self While Un/Braiding Latina Stories and Legal Discourse, 17 HARV. WOMEN'S L.J. 185 (1994).
Available at: UNM-DR

Reports

Report and Recommendations—Legal Scholar Team, Diversity in the Legal Profession: The Next Steps (April 2010) (co-authored with Tucker Culbertson and Marc-Tizoc González).
Available at: UNM-DR

Book Reviews

Book’s Insights on Race Lost in Reviewer’s Fog (Laura Gomez's Manifest Destinies: The Making of the Mexican American Race), THE SUNDAY JOURNAL (December 16, 2007) B3.

Carl Gutierrez-Jones' Rethinking the Borderlands: Between Chicano Culture and Legal Discourse (1995), 5 SOC. LEGAL STUD. 435 (1996).

Popular Press

Why the U. of Michigan Flap Matters to UNM, ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE C-1 (April 9, 2003) (co-authored with Samantha Adams and Julie Sakura).

How the Supreme Court Has Shaken Our Faith, ALBUQUERQUE TRIBUNE D1 (April 6, 2001).

Impact

Narrative Braids: Performing Racial Literacy 33 AMER. IND. L. J. 153 (2008) (co-authored with Christine Zuni Cruz and Gene Grant).

Reprinted: 1 FREEDOM CTR. J. 60 (2009).

Silence and Silencing: Their Centripetal and Centrifugal Forces in Legal Communication, Pedagogy and Discourse, 33 MICH. J. L. REFORM 263 (2000).

Reprinted: 5 MICH. J. RACE & L. 847 ( 2000).

On "Subtle Prejudices," White Supremacy and Affirmative Action: A Reply to Paul Butler, 68 U. COLO. L. REV. 891 (1997).

Reprinted: Race and Races: Cases and Resources for a Multiracial America (Juan Perea et al. eds., 1999).

Voices/Voces in the Borderlands: A Colloquy on Re/Constructing Identities in Re/Constructed Legal Spaces, 6 COLUM. J. GENDER & L. 387 (1996) (co-authored with Melissa Harrison).