University of Minnesota to probe its history of racism and anti-Semitism

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A provocative exhibit about the University of Minnesota’s history of segregation and anti-Semitism has prompted U officials to assemble a committee to confront that past.

President Eric Kaler announced the formation of the President’s and Provost’s Advisory Committee on University History in a letter that was read Wednesday at a public event for the exhibit “A Campus Divided: Progressives, Anti-Communists, Racism, and Anti-Semitism at the University of Minnesota, 1930-1942.”

The exhibit unearths long-buried information about the efforts of well-known university administrators to segregate housing, spy on Jewish students and quash student activism.

It “highlights actions by some in the past that we condemn today,” Kaler wrote. The advisory committee, he said, will “guide our thinking about appropriate modern responses to historical issues on our campuses.”