Taxpayer-funded Minnesota program pushes ‘critical Indigenous theory,’ protest art, and 'Black Marxism'

The University of Minnesota–Twin Cities is offering and developing courses steeped in radical left-wing ideology, including content promoting Marxism, “decolonizing Palestine,” Queer theory, and the Black Lives Matter movement—much of it funded in part by Minnesota taxpayers.

Documents obtained through a Minnesota Data Practices Act by the organization Defending Education reveal that multiple courses in the university’s Race, Indigeneity, Disability, Gender, and Sexuality Studies (RIDGS) program and Chicano-Latino Studies department explicitly focus on activist movements, anti-capitalist theory, and “decolonization.”

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One graduate course, “AMIN 8301: Critical Indigenous Theory,” describes itself as being centered on “power—in particular, settler colonialism, capitalism, white supremacy, heteronormativity, and imperialism.” 

Course materials include Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition and Inter/Nationalism: Decolonizing Native America and Palestine, a text that draws parallels between Native American activism and the Palestinian cause.

The syllabus outlines objectives such as helping students “think critically about the impact of colonialisms and settler colonialisms on Native peoples” and “identify how Indigenous values and ethics inform the type of justice Native and Indigenous peoples seek.” 

The class incorporates Queer theory, Marxism, feminist studies, and postmodernism as key frameworks for analysis.

Another new course, “New Core Class for RIDGS Graduate Minor,” aims to train students in theories of “Black Marxism,” “racial capitalism,” “color-blind racism,” and “settler colonialism.” 

According to the course description, students examine “genocide, slavery, conquest, confinement, immigration, patriarchy, diaspora, capital accumulation, colonialism, and settler colonialism as central processes” shaping society.

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These radical frameworks extend beyond the university to K–12 education through the RIDGS “Ethnic Studies Initiative,” which is funded by the Minnesota Humanities Center via the Arts and Cultural Heritage Fund — meaning taxpayers are footing part of the bill. 

The program provides teachers across the state with “free, accessible, and Minnesota-specific ethnic studies lesson plans” designed to align with public school standards.

Lesson materials encourage students to explore the “guiding principles of the Black Lives Matter movement” and to identify whether they fall into “privileged” or “marginalized” identity groups. 

One assignment, titled “Protest Art & the Movement for Black Life,” asks middle schoolers to create political art promoting “causes” such as “Defund the Police,” “People Over Property,” and “All Power to the People.”

Another exercise, the “Social Identity Wheel Activity,” requires students to classify themselves based on race, gender, and sexuality, and reflect on whether they benefit from “privilege.”

Campus Reform has contacted the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities for comment. This article will be updated accordingly.