LULAC pushing campaign to bring law school to El Paso

LULAC, the League of Latin American Citizens, argues it’s time the border was better served by getting more legal expertise in the community.

“Anybody who wants to go to school from El Paso has to go to Baylor,” said Danny Anchondo, president of LULAC Council 4982, “they have to go to Austin, they have to go to St. Mary’s. Nowhere along the border is there a law school.”

LULAC is launching the new effort, trying to gather community support to bring a law school to the Borderland. Going before El Paso County Commissioners Monday was one of their first steps. The plan now is to talk with leaders at the city, UTEP, and bar association soon. The goal is to get the Texas legislature to fund it, based on an early 1990’s lawsuit, LULAC vs. Richards.

“That lawsuit required the state to provide funding along the border because of the systematic discrimination against higher education along the border,” Anchondo said.

Commissioners didn’t take any official action on LULAC’s push Monday. Individual commissioners did voice support in general, but some like County Judge Veronica Escobar said it’s not as simple as getting a bill through the legislature. Giving the example of the Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center El Paso, she said it takes a lot of local financial to get ideas like this off the ground.”

“It’s a lofty, worthy, wonderful goal, which I support wholeheartedly,” Escobar said. “It’s important to work with I think the business community as well as the actual university in addition to working with the (state legislature) delegation.”

Local members of the state legislature told ABC-7 it would take new appropriations to get any funding for this effort.