Welcome back to The Flyover, your daily digest of important, overlooked, and/or interesting Minnesota news stories.
Bye-Bye, DEI
Well... gonna be harder to boycott this one. For MinnPost, Deanna Pistono reports that Texas-based CenterPoint Energy, Minnesota's largest natural gas provider, has taken down webpages that previously referred to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Maplewood-headquartered 3M has also taken down its DEI webpages. Here's Pistono:
Early in the week Google searches for “3M DEI” and “CenterPoint DEI” brought up results that indicated both companies had previous webpages focused on DEI initiatives. While the 404 error remains on on the 3M site, following inquiry from MinnPost, the former DEI link on the CenterPoint site is now a redirect to a page titled “Our Workforce and Community Impact.” The words diversity, equity and inclusion are not found on that new page.
Looking at the Post-it notes on my desk and shaking my head so they know I disagree...
In all seriousness though, this sucks. Many have referred to it as a "mask-off" moment for American corporations, who have been only too eager to follow the White House's lead in gutting DEI initiatives. 3M has, of course, long been evil, and there's an interesting Bluesky thread here about CenterPoint's quiet, ongoing right-wing agenda, including its financial support of lawmakers who support trigger laws criminalizing abortion.
On the one hand, you could argue that the ease and comfort with which corporations have scrubbed their DEI "initiatives" goes to show that maybe they were only ever performative measures companies saw as a way to... what, attract talent? Appease shareholders? Avoid getting sued? Create new HR and marketing jobs?
On the other, their dissolution does feel very sinister—also racist and sexist and ableist. Of course it does. Even if DEI isn't the most effective means of actually closing the gender pay gap or improving benefits, the fact that some of our biggest employers no longer feel that they can or should say, "We promote diversity, equity, and inclusion in our workplace" is: bad. Performative gestures are the place you start from if you want to create actual, meaningful, structural change. There's a reason Trump's going after this stuff.
But hey, at least some of the performative-ness will continue. Here's what 3M had to say to MinnPost in an email:
We are committed to equal employment opportunities and non-discrimination, and we are reviewing the (executive) orders relevant to better understand their implications for our business. We will continue to monitor and comply with any changes to our legal obligations as a federal government contractor.
Brave!
House Situation Kinda Sorta Back to Normal
It's been a weird year in many ways, but we're nearing the conclusion of one of its strangest situations, at least close to home. Thanks to a Wednesday agreement, the drama in the Minnesota House of Representatives has finally been sorted out.
MPR News's Dana Ferguson and Brian Bakst have the rundown on the power-sharing deal reached by House Republicans and DFLers, which gives the former "working control of the floor and committees for at least a month but allows Democrats to gain a foothold if an election restores a tie." The deal should see the House convening with both parties present.
Republicans still hold 67 seats to the DFL's 66, and they will until a March 11 special election (which is predicted to go to the DFL) determines whether there's a tie. In the meantime, committee hearings are scheduled to begin Monday.
Dubious Anti-Sex Trafficking Group Heads for Minneapolis
Anti-sex trafficking group Our Rescue, formerly known as Operation Underground Railroad, is planning to move from Salt Lake City to Minneapolis, according to the Star Tribune's Susan Du (gift link). They're headed for the South Minneapolis Community Safety Center at 2633 Minnehaha Ave.—the facility being built in the burnt-out Third Precinct—which will "house services related to human trafficking in the center alongside police when it opens in 2026," Du reports.
Why are people mad about Our Rescue's involvement in that project? Well, here's a September New York Times story (gift link) that goes in-depth on the allegations against the nonprofit's since-ousted leader, Tim Ballard, who has also been an advisor to Trump and whose supporters include Glenn Beck (yeesh), Tony Robbins (oh boy), and Pittsburgh Steelers coach Mike Tomlin (honestly seems cool). Six women have filed lawsuits accusing Ballard of sexual assault, "with some describing situations in which he used his strength to overpower them despite their explicit pleas to stop."
On a structural level, the organization is one of those that's not interested in facts so much as sensationalism. Its new CEO, Tammy Lee, had the following to say to the Strib...
According to Lee: Minnesota is third in the nation for child sex abuse cases; Interstate 35W is a “hotbed” of victims being transported from Mexico to Duluth; the port of Duluth is a critical entry point for traffickers; and according to the National Human Trafficking Hotline, sex trafficking was the most common form of trafficking in Minnesota, with about one-fourth of victims being minors.
Meanwhile Deb DeLuca, executive director of the Duluth Seaway Port Authority, said, “There have been no cases of port-related human trafficking in well over 20 years."
And the, uh, discrepancies between what Our Rescue says and what local groups have to say don't stop there.
“Our Rescue does not operate with best practices for survivors of trafficking, so that part’s hard,” Beth Holger, CEO of The Link, which supports young people who are survivors of sex trafficking, tells the Strib. The Link had initially been contracted for survivor services and police training at the safety center; the city later decided Our Rescue would get that contract. “It was just really surprising, when the city of Minneapolis honestly has done a lot of really good work with us over the years on sex trafficking," Holger adds.
City spokesperson Brian Feintech says the plans will go to the City Council for review.
MN: Broomball Capital of the World
This story is a few days old now, but I'm the only Racket editor broomball-pilled enough to highlight it in the Flyover. For the Star Tribune, Bob Timmons writes that Minnesota is "the center of the broomball universe," and one local player, Grant Dawson, tells Timmons he'd bet there are more players in Minnesota than in the rest of the country combined. (Not that there are formal figures that would back this up, but... have you ever talked to a non-Minnesotan about the sport? Ten to one, they've never heard of it.)
I didn't know this, but apparently broomball's U.S. origins are found up in Duluth, and today, most of the best teams in the world—both men's and women's—are Minnesotans. "The women’s, mixed and master teams that won world indoor championships last October in Chamonix, France, were flush with North Star State residents," Timmons writes, including Ellen Raushel of Little Canada, who was the women's bracket MVP.
Anyway, it's a fun read, and that link up there is a gift link, so go ahead an click out of this edition of the Flyover on a happy note, if you so choose. I've gotta go get ready for broomball myself—we have the 6 p.m. game tonight, and traffic is always the worst for those!
