A taxpayer-funded California university partnered with a United Nations agency to teach Mexican officials how to make their justice system LGBT-friendly, records obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation show.
More than 220 Mexican judges, secretaries and officers in Mexico’s judicial branch participated in a virtual University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) School of Law course from October to November 2022 on upholding gay and transgender rights, according to materials received in a public records request and translated by the DCNF. The law school’s Williams Institute on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Law and Public Policy provided the course in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) and Mexico’s Federal Judiciary Council, an agency that oversaw the country’s court system before legislative reforms delegated its authority elsewhere.
The UCLA course underscores the yearslong relationship between American legal institutions and Mexico’s government to advance liberal causes in both countries. Mexico also funds liberal American attorneys to stop U.S. courts from executing Mexican citizens, a punishment the nation calls “cruel and inhuman,” the DCNF previously reported.
UCLA receives hundreds of millions of dollars in federal and state grants, including $641 million California approved in fiscal year 2024 alone. The school successfully sued to regain more than $500 million in federal funds the Trump administration froze in July over alleged campus civil rights violations, CalMatters reported. Master of Laws students at UCLA’s law school will be eligible for $20,500 annually in federal unsubsidized loans by July, according to the school’s website.
The law school, which houses the Williams Institute, did not respond to the DCNF’s requests for comment about whether the course is ongoing and where its funding comes from. The UNFPA and the head of Mexico’s Foreign Affairs Ministry also did not respond to inquiries.
“It is important that judges have sufficient information to contextualize the experiences of LGBTQ+ individuals from an intersectional perspective, including up-to-date and accurate data about them and their legal issues,” a course description says in Spanish, according to DCNF translations. “In addition to this, they need to have practical tools and effective resources to optimally have the variety of cases and issues that arise when resolving matters within the scope of their duties.”
Participant goals include learning about “good practices in the administration of justice that take into account sexual orientation, gender identity or variations in sex characteristics in order to replicate them in their immediate environments,” the translated course description says. After the description comes a spreadsheet of Mexican judicial officials’ names alongside their government roles, redacted contact details, an assigned group number and other information.
Other goals of the 2022 course include understanding “violence and discrimination that LGBTQ+ people face in accessing and administering justice in Mexico within the framework of human rights, and the gender and intersectional perspective,” the description says. It will also teach how “a gender perspective is useful for those who administer justice” and help officials “identify cases involving LGBTQ+ people,” according to the document.
Former Mexican Chief Justice Arturo Zaldívar supported international partnerships fostering “human rights” like the UCLA course during his tenure, the course description says. Zaldívar made headlines in American media for taking staunchly liberal stances on social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion.
“The whole country shines with a huge rainbow,” Zaldívar declared after a Mexican state voted to legalize same-sex marriage in 2022, The Associated Press reported. “Live the dignity and rights of all people. Love is love.”
UCLA’s document likewise claims its coursework is needed to stop Mexico’s justice system from oppressing LGBTQ people.
“These communities, which have been historically and structurally neglected, may have difficulty accessing justice through the courts and other legal channels,” it says. “Their lived experiences often make them reluctant to participate in the legal and justice systems, as they lack confidence that these systems can adequately and without discrimination meet their needs, or they lack the information and/or financial resources to engage with the justice system.”
Just 5.1% of the country identifies as LGBT, Mexico’s National Institute of Statistics and Geography found in 2021.
Former DCNF reporter Katelynn Richardson and Lucas Alonso contributed to this story.
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