ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — The Oscars is known as a big night in Hollywood but a local professor and his students believe it’s time to revise some of the categories.

Lawrence Jones, a constitutional law professor at the University of New Mexico, believes it’s time to revise the Oscars’ gender-divided category of acting.

“The hope is that the Academy will study it and formulate it in task force but there are lots of different issues. One of the main issues is the question, really, to when, how and why gender segregation began at the Academy Awards,” Jones said.

It started out as a final project for him and 10 students. It ended in a 99-page presentation they submitted to the president and board of governors at the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, asking them to look into gender divisin.

“What the students are really asking for in the presentation is not so much for there to be integration or continuing the segregation but rather than for the academy to formulate an official task force to study the issue and on top of that, once they reach their conclusion, to share that conclusion with the public,” Jones said.

Their hope is to get that gender category looked at by the 2026 Oscars.

“As far as formulating a task force after 100 years, there no real reason to wait that much longer. That could be formulated logically, in the spring or summer,” Jones said.

The class submitted the presentation at the end of last year. Jones said they’re waiting until April to follow up.