The TRUTH Project event

The TRUTH Project event
Tribal-University Relations: A Call to the University of Minnesota to Reckon With its Origins as a Land Grab University
Attend in person at the UMD Kirby Ballroom or on Zoom: https://z.umn.edu/TRUTHProjectZoom
This event will build awareness on and beyond the UMD campus regarding the TRUTH Report research process, findings, and recommendations; cultivate active commitment among UMD programs to mind their obligations to Native nations and Indigenous people; and underscore for campus and system decision-makers the necessity of responding to the report, acknowledging and reckoning with it, and pursuing its recommendations.
The presentation will share the work of the Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing (TRUTH) Project. Formed in 2020 in response to resolutions passed by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) insisting the University of Minnesota investigate ways to be in better relation with the eleven federally recognized Tribes in the state, TRUTH looks at the impacts UMN has had on Indigenous Peoples in MniSota.
Overall, the TRUTH project has begun to expose how wealth has been transferred and accumulated through the institution since 1851. As a Tribally-led research movement, we unearthed how UMN raised more wealth than most U.S. land grab universities, making a 25,000% return on investment. Per state and federal legislation, these funds must be held in perpetuity, and have been bonded out to municipalities to grow the colonizer State of Minnesota. Profit persists through land sales, mineral rights holdings, special endowments, and the appropriation and commodification of Indigenous knowledges.
This perpetual accumulation of wealth has come from a sustained disinvestment in, and deprivation of, Indigenous communities. It has left a legacy of land misuse and a persistent toll on the well-being of Indigenous Peoples across Turtle Island. TRUTH seeks policy shifts that center Indigenous justice healing.
PRESENTERS:
Misty Blue, citizen of the White Earth Nation and appointed by the Minnesota Indian Affairs Council (MIAC) will discuss building collective power with tribes. During the TRUTH project she assembled a team of Native scholars who have examined the past, present, and future of Tribal-University relations since the University opened in 1851. These Tribal Research Fellows conducted place-based, tribally-based research using archival and indigenous methodologies around a self-determined topic. Each Tribal Research Fellow presented their experience and their findings at the TRUTH Project Symposium in May 2022. Some wrote a portion of the final report that was released in April 2023.
An Garagiola, descendant of the Bois Forte Band of Chippewa, is a Ph.D. student in American Studies, as well as Project Manager in the Office of Native American Affairs at the University of Minnesota. An was a core researcher and coordinated the university side of the TRUTH Project.
Audrianna Goodwin, citizen of the Red Lake Nation was a Research Assistant, and a Tribal Research Fellow appointed by the governing body of Red Lake to research medical studies that took place on young children of the reservation. In addition, Audrianna was a part of a Capstone Research team at the Humphrey School of Public Affairs that conducted forensic accounting of the Permanent University Fund.
This event is sponsored by:
Department of American Indian Studies
Tribal Sovereignty Institute
Indigenous Student Organization
Indigenous Geoscience Community
American Indian Learning Resource Center
Center for Regional and Tribal Child Welfare Studies
Office of Diversity & Inclusion
College of Pharmacy
College of Arts, Humanities, & Social Sciences
College of Education and Human Service Professions
Labovitz School of Business and Economics
Swenson College of Science & Engineering