SW News: A report released on Tuesday showed that the founding fathers of the University of Minnesota engaged in "genocide" and "ethnic cleansing" of Native Americans in the 19th century, which benefited the university financially.

The Minnesota Indian Affairs Council and the university collaborated on the investigation, which revealed that the university created and taught revisionist narratives meant to hide the systemic harm done to Indigenous people.

According to the report, "The Founding Board of Regents committed ethnic cleansing and genocide of Indigenous peoples for financial gain, utilizing the institution as a shell business to launder lands and resources."

The TRUTH Project—an acronym for "Towards Recognition and University-Tribal Healing"—brought out the 500-page report.

The project, which started in 2020, aims to shed light on how institutions throughout the country were constructed using funds from land confiscated from Indians by the 1862 Morrill Act.

The study team for the project said on Tuesday that the University of Minnesota extracted enormous sums of revenue from the local tribes. It claimed that the institution's founders utilized their influence in government to pass anti-Indigenous legislation that was profitable for them and the organization.

In the study, the institution was recommended to implement measures that would help Indigenous people, such as "reparations, truth-telling, policy change, and transformational justice processes."

According to its website, the University of Minnesota has about 50,000 students and 20,000 teachers and staff.

The research, according to Robert Larsen, president of the Minnesota Native Affairs Council, just skimmed the surface of local history, which is largely overlooked in schools or not widely understood.

The United States Congress apologized to Native Americans for the brutality, mistreatment, and neglect they had endured at the hands of American citizens in a resolution that was hidden away in an appropriations measure in 2009. Governor Gavin Newsom of California apologized to Native Americans in 2019 for the brutality and other wrongdoings they endured throughout the state's history.