# University of Minnesota *Public land-grant research university in the Twin Cities, Minnesota; flagship of the University of Minnesota System.* The **University of Minnesota** is a public research university with land-grant status. It is the flagship of the University of Minnesota System, and its Twin Cities campus has grounds in [[Minneapolis]] and [[Saint Paul, Minnesota]], about 3 miles apart.[^1] The campus enrolled 56,666 students in fall 2024 and is divided into 19 colleges, schools and other major academic units.[^1] The Territorial Legislature chartered the university in 1851, seven years before statehood. The charter directed that it be sited "at or near the Falls of Saint Anthony" and placed it under a twelve-member Board of Regents elected by the Legislature.[^2] In the Minnesota record the university appears through its outputs. Its Law School was founded in 1888, and its alumni have held the offices of [[Minnesota Attorney General]] and Hennepin County Attorney.[^3][^4] Its press has published the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory since 1943.[^5] Its federal employment and civil-rights proceedings run from 1980 to 2026. They include a 1980 consent decree in [[Rajender v. University of Minnesota (consent decree)]],[^6] three Eighth Circuit opinions in [[Maitland v. University of Minnesota]],[^7] an Office for Civil Rights investigation opened on March 13, 2025,[^8] and a Title VI resolution agreement announced on February 19, 2026.[^9] In April 2023 the university and the [[Minnesota Indian Affairs Council]] issued their own account of the institution's founding, the *TRUTH Project Final Report*. It describes the founding Board of Regents as having used a "shell corporation through which to launder lands and resources."[^10] A university news release records that the [[TRUTH Project]] was presented to the Board of Regents.[^11] Thirty-four months after the report, the U.S. Department of Education listed "University of Minnesota – Twin Cities" among 31 institutions that had entered agreements to end partnerships with The PhD Project.[^9] ## History Wikipedia's account of the university's history says that Governor [[Alexander Ramsey]] joined the Territorial Legislature in granting the 1851 charter, after which a board of regents was elected.[^12] The charter also barred sectarian instruction.[^2] The school closed in 1858. In 1867 it gained land-grant status under the [[Morrill Act of 1862]], and that status allowed it to reopen.[^12][^13] The same account states that the grant lands had been taken from the Dakota people and that the Dakota have not been credited for the expropriation.[^12] The school was kept open by an 1876 gift from the flour miller [[John S. Pillsbury]], and Pillsbury Hall bears his name.[^12][^14] Its first graduates finished in 1873. It awarded its first master's degree in 1880 and its first Ph.D. in 1888, the year the Law School was founded.[^12][^3] ## Academics and research The Carnegie Classification places the university in its R1 category, and the university belongs to the Association of American Universities. For 2022 the National Science Foundation ranked it 22nd among American universities in research and development spending, at $1.202 billion.[^1] For fall 2025 it received more than 43,000 freshman applications for a class of about 7,100.[^1] Hathaway and McKinley began developing the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI) at the university in 1939, and the University of Minnesota Press published it in 1943.[^5] A restandardization committee of Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham and Tellegen was formed at the university in 1982.[^15] James Butcher's team finished collecting new normative data in October 1988, with 2,600 subjects from seven states.[^16] The Press issued the MMPI-2 in March 1989, naming Butcher, Dahlstrom, Graham, Tellegen and Kaemmer as authors.[^17] The Press licenses the instrument nationally and internationally.[^18] The Mapping Prejudice project began at the university in 2016. It documents racial covenants in Minneapolis housing.[^19] University Libraries hold [[Walter Mondale]]'s Senate papers.[^20] Mondale earned a B.A. in political science at the university in 1951 and later became the 42nd [[Vice President of the United States]].[^1] He is also a Law School alumnus.[^21] ## In the Minnesota record ### Who - **Board of Regents.** The Board is the university's governing body.[^22] Under the 1851 charter it had twelve members, elected by the Legislature.[^2] - **Law School alumni in state office.** The project's claim record lists Mondale, Mattson, Head, Spannaus, Humphrey III, Hatch and Ellison as Law School alumni who became attorneys general.[^3] - [[Mike Hatch]] (DFL) was elected Attorney General in 1998. In that office he defended the announce clause in *RPM v. White*.[^23] - The Law School's 2017 memorial notice names Warren Spannaus as a member of the class of 1963.[^24] - Hubert H. Humphrey III received the university's Outstanding Achievement Award.[^25] - The Law School marked the death of Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman ('95) on June 17, 2025.[^26] - A Law School magazine story profiles four alumni who sat on the Minnesota Supreme Court at the time it was published.[^27] - Diana Murphy, who had a Law School background, was nominated to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in July 1994.[^28] - **Hennepin County Attorneys.** - Tom Johnson (Law 1970) held the office from 1979 to 1991.[^4] - Michael Freeman (Law 1974) held it from January 7, 1991, to January 5, 1999, and again from January 3, 2007, to January 2, 2023.[^29] The Legislative Reference Library's legislator record lists his earlier service in the [[Minnesota Senate]] for District 40, from 1982 to 1991.[^30] - Mary Moriarty (Law 1989) has held the office since January 2, 2023, for a term that ends January 4, 2027. On August 7, 2025, she announced that she would not seek a second term.[^31] - [[Cedrick Frazier]] and Anders Folk advanced from the August 11, 2026 primary to the November 3, 2026 general election.[^32] ### What - The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act was signed on November 16, 1990. The project's time table lists the university as a holder of collections subject to the Act.[^33] - The university maintains an EOAA / [[Title IX]] office.[^34] - The university retains licensing of the MMPI-2.[^16] ### When - **1851:** territorial charter.[^2] - **1867:** land-grant status.[^13] - **1888:** Law School founded.[^3] - **1943:** MMPI published.[^5] - **1980:** consent decree in *Rajender*.[^6] - **1989:** MMPI-2 published.[^17] - **June 12, 2003:** settlement reported in *Maitland*.[^35] - **April 11, 2023:** *TRUTH Project Final Report*.[^10] - **November 14, 2024:** Equal Protection Project complaint filed.[^36] - **March 13, 2025:** OCR investigation opened.[^8] - **January 14, 2026:** DOJ release No. 26-21.[^37] - **February 19, 2026:** PhD Project resolution agreement announced.[^9] ### Where - The