The Minnesota Interagency Council on Homelessness, part of Gov. Tim Walz's cabinet, heads the state's efforts to "end homelessness." At its monthly webinars, however, the council's members start by addressing a different topic: land acknowledgment.
"It's important, as we do in all these conversations, to begin with our understanding of our place in both the physical and in our cultural placement to do our land acknowledgment," the council's communications specialist, Dan Gregory, said at the beginning of a July 10 webinar, according to a video recording reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
"Today, as we gather virtually, it is of utmost importance that we all recognize the land we are living and working on is stolen land from our Native American relatives," Gregory read off a slide. "We must seek to understand our place within that history and use that understanding to work towards justice."
The council holds such webinars monthly and starts them by directing participants to recite the "stolen land" line. At least two other Minnesota government bodies under Walz make similar "land acknowledgments," platitudinal statements that effectively serve as apologies for America's existence, the Free Beacon found.
Like other left-wing cultural initiatives from Walz's administration, the emphasis within Minnesota's government to discredit—and apologize for—its own existence undercuts Walz's campaign image as the governor runs to serve as Kamala Harris's vice president. Vogue has called Walz a "genuinely nice guy" who is "overflowing with Midwestern-dad energy," while the Washington Post touts his "Midwestern dad vibe."
It’s unclear how—if at all—calling the state "stolen land" has helped Minnesota's government solve its homelessness problem. Last year, for example, homelessness in the state reached its second-highest mark in 30 years, according to a March study from Wilder Research.
The federal point-in-time count of homelessness across the country, meanwhile, found a 6 percent increase in Minnesota from 2022 to 2023. Households with children saw a particularly sharp increase. "The number of people in households with children experiencing homelessness statewide increased by more than a quarter (27%) between 2022 and 2023," the state's summary of the point-in-time count noted.
Walz's homelessness council is not the only agency offering regular land acknowledgments. The Olmstead Implementation Office—the state arm tasked with serving disabled Minnesotans—has also made it a priority to promote the "stolen land" narrative in its leadership meetings.
PowerPoint slides from the office's March leadership meeting, for example, show the agency offered two separate land acknowledgments. The first said all attendees acknowledge that they "are located on the traditional land of Indigenous people that once and still is occupied by the Ojibwe, Dakota and other Native peoples from the time immemorial" and "recognize, support and advocate for the sovereignty of these nations in this territory and beyond." The second echoed language from the homelessness council.
Not all of the office's leadership meetings included both land acknowledgments. September's meeting, for example, only included the first version.
The "stolen land" claim has also featured prominently in meetings for Minnesota's State Advisory Council on Mental Health, part of the Minnesota Department of Health.
The council's September 2023 meeting—the most recent meeting for which materials were posted online—began with the statement: "We, the members of the State Advisory Council on Mental Health and Subcommittee on Children’s Mental Health, acknowledge that the wealth of this country was built on stolen land and with enslaved and underpaid labor of African American, Native American, and Immigrant people."
Minnesota has a complicated history with its various American Indian tribes. The 1862 Dakota massacre of more than 500 Minnesotans, for example, ignited that year's U.S.-Dakota war. Many Ojibwe warriors fought with the British against the United States in the War of 1812. The Dakota and Ojibwe tribes fought each other for decades over competing land claims in Minnesota, though such information is not included in the Walz administration's land acknowledgments.
The governor's office and the Harris-Walz campaign did not respond to requests for comment.