ALBUQUERQUE (LN) — Chief U.S. District Judge Kenneth J. Gonzales on Wednesday sua sponte ordered the Board of Education for the Gallup-McKinley County Public Schools to show cause why its case should not be consolidated with two separate actions brought by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.
The school board filed its lawsuit in 2025 seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the EEOC and its acting chair, Andrea R. Lucas. The complaint alleged that the agency’s ongoing investigation into the district’s employment practices violates the Administrative Procedure Act and the Fifth Amendment’s Due Process Clause.
The board asked the court to set aside the EEOC’s charge of discrimination, restrain further investigation, quash subpoenas, and enjoin the agency from filing future charges inconsistent with a court order.
Gonzales noted that Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 42 allows consolidation of actions involving common questions of law or fact. He identified two pending cases where the EEOC seeks to enforce administrative subpoenas issued during its probe into alleged patterns of racial discrimination against Native American employees and applicants.
Those enforcement actions are captioned EEOC v. Gallup-McKinley County Schools, No. 1:25-mc-025-MLG, filed in August 2025, and EEOC v. Gallup-McKinley County Schools, No. 1:26-mc-00019-KG, filed in April 2026.
The parties have 14 days to respond to the judge’s inquiry regarding consolidation.