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By Catharine Richert and Curtis Gilbert

The University of Minnesota is shutting down a multimillion-dollar research center that has been roiled by plagiarism allegations.

Public health school dean Melinda Pettigrew announced Thursday that the Center for Antiracism Research for Health Equity will close on May 30.

“The University of Minnesota School of Public Health remains strongly committed to our values and advancing health equity, which is central to who we are and how we teach, conduct research, and engage with communities,” Pettigrew said in a written statement. “We are working with our staff, faculty and students to ensure a thoughtful and organized transition in order to carry our work forward with intention, care, and a focus on collaborative impact.”

The announcement came one day after the center’s founder, professor Rachel Hardeman, officially left her position at the school. Hardeman, who Time magazine named one of its 100 most influential people last year, was publicly accused in April of using sections of a graduate student’s dissertation proposal in a federal grant application without proper credit.

Those allegations were widely known within the public health school and had been reported to university leaders multiple times over the past two years. An MPR News investigation found that three faculty members alerted administrators to the alleged plagiarism between 2023 and 2024. A U of M official investigated the allegations and ruled it was an “honest error.” The U did not discipline Hardeman, leading a former collaborator to accuse the school of covering up the alleged misconduct.

Hardeman announced last month that she was resigning from the University, a process she said had been in the works for months before the accusations were made public. She criticized the U’s decision to shutter the center.

“The closure is not a reflection of CARHE’s work,” Hardeman wrote in a statement Thursday forwarded by her spokesperson. “It’s a reflection of the University’s failure to support, protect, or sustain antiracism work when it becomes inconvenient. CARHE was never meant to be performative. It was meant to disrupt. And that disruption was too much for a system unwilling to evolve.”

Hardeman vowed to continue that work “freed from the constraints of an institution more concerned with optics than impact.”

Hardeman’s alleged plagiarism was part of a $2.3 million grant application to the National Institutes of Health.

Researcher Brigette Davis revealed last month that Hardeman’s application included entire passages from a dissertation proposal Davis shared with her years earlier. Davis discovered the copied material after Hardeman hired her to work in the center. She eventually confronted Hardeman, who apologized, saying she had intended to rewrite the section and talk to Davis about it, but ran out of time and then forgot where the words had come from.

The final grant report Hardeman submitted to the federal government on April 14 noted that some of the proposed research was never completed “due to ethical and collaborative concerns.”

“During the study’s development, we identified the need for clearer attribution regarding contributions to the original methodological framework,” Hardeman wrote. “While steps were taken to address this, the situation created challenges within the research team that ultimately made it difficult to move forward productively.”

A separation agreement signed in March between the U of M and Hardeman said she would be relieved of teaching, advising and other service during her final months of employment and would focus on “assisting with the transition and/or wrapup” of the research center’s work. Hardeman’s 2025 salary was $206,000, according to public records.

The agreement does not mention the plagiarism allegations, but it required the School of Public Health to send a message to its employees reminding them not to engage “in any defamatory or otherwise unlawful communications in the course and/or scope of their employment with the University.”

It also includes a letter of reference that Pettigrew or her successor is required to send out should anyone contact the school about Hardeman. “Dean Pettigrew will not provide additional information unless Employee provides written authorization to do so,” it says. In exchange, Hardeman waives her right to sue or file other claims against the university.

The U of M released Hardeman’s separation agreement, the final grant report and other documents as a result of multiple public records requests filed by MPR News and APM Reports.

The center launched to great fanfare in 2021 with a $5 million grant from Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota to focus on racial health disparities.

A spokesperson for Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota characterized Hardeman’s departure and the center’s closure as “internal matters within the University of Minnesota.”

The statement concluded: “Blue Cross continues to engage in discussions with the university’s School of Public Health on other opportunities that advance our goals of convening key stakeholders and working on initiatives that can help everyone live their healthiest lives.”

Pettigrew declined an interview, but in the email to staff announcing the center’s closure, she said that the public health school remains committed to health equity.

“We are currently assessing and reimagining the important work of health equity research and action as we also work closely with our funding partners to align priorities and strategic direction,” she wrote.