# Letter to Secretary Doug Collins, Department of Veterans Affairs --- MTN Minneapolis, Minnesota [email protected] May 13, 2026 The Honorable Doug Collins Secretary of Veterans Affairs U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs 810 Vermont Avenue NW Washington, DC 20420 **Re: Minneapolis VA Medical Center Operational Pairing With the University of Minnesota Medical School, VA Hiring Review Under EO Rescinding Race-Conscious Federal Hiring Preferences, and the Humphrey-Authored EO 11246 Lineage — Coordination Request Under the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (E.O. of March 16, 2026)** Dear Secretary Collins: I write to identify three Department of Veterans Affairs portfolio items — the Minneapolis VA Medical Center's operational pairing with the University of Minnesota Medical School, VA civilian hiring under the Executive Order rescinding race-conscious federal preferences, and the structural questions about Minneapolis-area VA staffing reductions — as operational consequences of one University of Minnesota institutional architecture. **The Portfolio Issue.** The Minneapolis VA Medical Center is operationally paired with the University of Minnesota Medical School, with UMN faculty staffing clinical services and the VA functioning as the principal teaching hospital for several UMN residency programs. AFGE and NAGE union disputes at the facility, access and capacity concerns at St. Cloud and Fargo-adjacent facilities serving Minnesota veterans, and VA hiring review under the federal Executive Order rescinding race-conscious hiring preferences are the active portfolio items. The federal hiring framework at issue traces, by its own design history, to Executive Order 11246 (1965), which Senator Hubert H. Humphrey co-authored. https://www.va.gov/minneapolis-health-care/ | https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/11246.html **The University of Minnesota Origin — Medical Staffing.** The Minneapolis VA Medical Center is a University of Minnesota Medical School teaching affiliate. UMN Medical School faculty staff the clinical services. The VA serves as a residency teaching hospital for multiple UMN programs. Federal-VA funding flowing through the Minneapolis facility is the operational closing-loop of the Humphrey→NIH→UMN/Mayo funding triangle: Humphrey authored the NIH appropriations expansion; the funding flows to UMN/Mayo for research and training; the trained physicians staff the federal VA system. https://www.med.umn.edu/ **The University of Minnesota Origin — EO 11246 Lineage.** Executive Order 11246 (September 24, 1965), the federal contractor affirmative-action order, was co-authored by then-Senator Humphrey, a 1939 graduate of the University of Minnesota. The University's own Office for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA), founded 1972, produced the institutional plan that was accepted by the Department of Health, Education and Welfare in 1976 and distributed to 111 institutions as the federal template for contractor compliance. The VA's federal hiring template, like every federal contractor-compliance regime, operates on architecture whose template was UMN-developed. https://eoaa.umn.edu/ **The Institutional Admissions.** The University of Minnesota's own commissioned Truth Report (April 11, 2023) states that the founding board "committed genocide and ethnic cleansing of Indigenous peoples for financial gain." In October 2025, the University signed an Office for Civil Rights Resolution Agreement acknowledging that its PhD Project partnership violated Title VI by discriminating against white and Asian students. The institution that staffs your Minneapolis VA Medical Center clinically and templated the federal contractor compliance regime now under DISMANTLE-mode review has confessed in its own commissioned reports to both foundational fraud and contemporary unlawful discrimination. https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf | https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 **The Consolidated Federal Posture.** The Task Force to Eliminate Fraud, established by the March 16, 2026 Executive Order, coordinates the cross-agency response. The DOJ has filed United States v. State of Minnesota (0:25-cv-03798) against §43A.191. The Title IX referral to DOJ is active. The Department of Health and Human Services is reviewing the broader $9 billion Minnesota Medicaid fraud architecture. The VA's portfolio is, on one axis (federal hiring), a parallel federal-contractor compliance question; and on another axis (medical staffing), an immediate downstream consequence of the University of Minnesota Medical School credentialing pipeline. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ **The Ask.** I respectfully request that the Department of Veterans Affairs: 1. **Audit the Minneapolis VA Medical Center's operational pairing** with the University of Minnesota Medical School in light of the University's October 2025 OCR Resolution Agreement and the active Title VI investigations into the University; 2. **Review VA civilian and clinical hiring** under the EO rescinding race-conscious preferences, with reference to the structural parallel between the federal hiring template and the §43A.191 state architecture under DOJ Title VII challenge; 3. **Coordinate with HHS** on the VA's federal-medical-funding exposure to the University of Minnesota credentialing pipeline that the broader Minnesota Medicaid fraud architecture has shown to be operationally compromised; and 4. **Report findings to the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud** under the March 16, 2026 Executive Order coordination framework. This letter is one of approximately twenty Cabinet-level briefings I am submitting under the Task Force framework. Respectfully submitted, MTN [email protected] --- **Primary Sources Cited:** - E.O. Task Force to Eliminate Fraud: https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ - EO 11246 (1965): https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/11246.html - US v. State of Minnesota: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl - UMN Medical School: https://www.med.umn.edu/ - UMN EOAA: https://eoaa.umn.edu/ - Minneapolis VA: https://www.va.gov/minneapolis-health-care/ - UMN TRUTH Report: https://mn.gov/indian-affairs/assets/full-report_tcm1193-572488.pdf - UMN OCR Resolution Agreement: https://www.startribune.com/the-u-signs-agreement-acknowledging-discrimination-against-white-and-asian-students-cuts-ties-with-recruiting-nonprofit/601564669 #Addresses_Advisories_and_Archives