# Letter to Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Department of Labor --- MTN Minneapolis, Minnesota [email protected] May 13, 2026 The Honorable Lori Chavez-DeRemer Secretary of Labor U.S. Department of Labor 200 Constitution Avenue NW Washington, DC 20210 **Re: The 1976 HEW-Accepted UMN Plan Distributed to 111 Institutions as the Origin of the OFCCP Enforcement Framework, OFCCP Scrutiny of Minnesota State Contractors Under Post-SFFA Guidance, and DOL Review of Minnesota CBAs With Race-Conscious Layoff Clauses — Coordination Request Under the Task Force to Eliminate Fraud (E.O. of March 16, 2026)** Dear Secretary Chavez-DeRemer: I write to identify the Department of Labor's Minnesota portfolio — OFCCP scrutiny of Minnesota state contractors under post-SFFA guidance, DOL review of Minnesota collective bargaining agreements (Minneapolis Public Schools, Metro Transit, AFSCME Council 5) whose layoff and hiring clauses prioritize race, and DOL's broader UI fraud review — as one operational consequence of an institutional template the University of Minnesota produced and that the Department of Health, Education and Welfare federalized in 1976. **The Portfolio Issue.** The Office of Federal Contract Compliance Programs (OFCCP) administers the federal contractor affirmative-action regime under Executive Order 11246 (1965) and successor authorities. Post-SFFA, the OFCCP's enforcement posture is undergoing systematic review. In Minnesota, the OFCCP's jurisdiction reaches state contractors operating under §43A.191-derivative state hiring frameworks — and §43A.191 is currently under DOJ Title VII challenge in United States v. State of Minnesota (0:25-cv-03798, D. Minn., Jan. 14, 2026). DOL is in parallel posture reviewing Minnesota CBA layoff and hiring clauses that prioritize race; the Minneapolis Public Schools Teacher Layoffs MOU is the highest-profile recent example. https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp | https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl **The University of Minnesota Origin — The 1976 Federalization Event.** The University of Minnesota's Office for Equal Opportunity and Affirmative Action (EOAA), founded in 1972 under Sandra Williams, produced an institutional Title IX / Title VI compliance plan in the early 1970s. The plan was developed in the immediate aftermath of the Rajender v. UMN sex-discrimination litigation, which produced the consent decree in 1980 under Judge Miles W. Lord (UMN Law 1948). In 1976, the U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) accepted the University of Minnesota's institutional plan and **distributed it to 111 institutions as the federal template for contractor compliance.** Every subsequent OFCCP enforcement framework operates on architecture whose template was UMN-developed. This is the moment the University of Minnesota's administrative output became the federal contractor-compliance standard. https://eoaa.umn.edu/ | https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/43A.191 **Maitland v. UMN and the Eighth Circuit Holding.** Maitland v. University of Minnesota, 155 F.3d 1013 (8th Cir. 1998), held that the University's continuing application of the Rajender consent decree as a hard preference in subsequent hiring exceeded what Title VII permitted. The Eighth Circuit found the architecture unlawful in 1998. The State of Minnesota expanded the §43A.191 architecture through five subsequent amendments over the following twenty-seven years. Each expansion is the State acting in defiance of binding circuit precedent. The OFCCP's federal enforcement framework, which has co-existed with §43A.191's state framework, is the federal regulatory counterpart that requires the same compliance posture. https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/155/1013/ **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 produced the federal contractor-compliance template has, in October 2025, signed a federal Resolution Agreement acknowledging that its own current operation of that compliance template was unlawful. 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 Civil Rights Division has filed the §43A.191 challenge under a Certificate of General Public Importance. The Department of Education and HHS have referred Minnesota to DOJ for Title IX non-compliance (Jan. 26, 2026). The Department of Labor sits at the OFCCP enforcement end of the same federal-contractor compliance template that is under DISMANTLE-mode review across multiple Cabinet departments. https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2026/03/establishing-the-task-force-to-eliminate-fraud/ **The Ask.** I respectfully request that the Department of Labor: 1. **Treat the 1976 HEW-accepted UMN plan** as a material historical fact in the post-SFFA review of OFCCP enforcement architecture, given that the University of Minnesota's October 2025 Resolution Agreement is an admission of unlawful operation of the same template that the federal contractor regime was modeled on; 2. **Audit Minnesota CBA layoff and hiring clauses** that prioritize race — including the Minneapolis Public Schools Teacher Layoffs MOU, Metro Transit agreements, and AFSCME Council 5 agreements — in coordination with the DOJ §43A.191 challenge; 3. **Review UI fraud** in Minnesota under the Task Force framework, in coordination with the broader House Oversight-documented Medicaid fraud architecture; 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. The Department of Labor receives the historical-template version because the Department holds the OFCCP enforcement authority that the 1976 HEW federalization produced. 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/ - US v. State of Minnesota: https://www.justice.gov/opa/media/1415681/dl - Maitland v. UMN, 155 F.3d 1013 (8th Cir. 1998): https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/F3/155/1013/ - Minn. Stat. §43A.191: https://www.revisor.mn.gov/statutes/cite/43A.191 - UMN EOAA: https://eoaa.umn.edu/ - OFCCP: https://www.dol.gov/agencies/ofccp - EO 11246: https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/codification/executive-order/11246.html - 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