The Trump administration is opening civil-rights investigations into the University of Connecticut and the University of Minnesota after receiving complaints alleging the schools are operating dorm programs that may be steering students into campus housing services based on race.

The complaints, filed by the Equal Protection Project and obtained by Fox News Digital, accuse UConn of operating three allegedly discriminatory housing programs — ScHOLA²RS House, BSOUL House and La Comunidad Intelectual — promoted toward Black male, Black female and Hispanic students. A separate complaint against the University of Minnesota Twin Cities names four programs — Huntley House, Charlotte’s Home, CASA SOL and Tsev Hmoob — that allegedly are promoted toward Black male, Black female, Hispanic and Hmong American students. 

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD), the programs potentially violate the Fair Housing Act, Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and constitutional equal-protection guarantees by steering students toward or away from dormitory housing programs – which also include student support services – based on race, color or national origin, even when the universities say the programs are «open to all.»

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«Unlawful discrimination cannot be allowed to poison American communities or separate members of our next generation —especially in college and university housing,» Secretary Scott Turner said in a statement to Fox News Digital. «Every student has the right to learn and live in an educational environment free from illegal and divisive DEI. Unlike the Biden Administration, the Trump Administration does not play favorites. Every American deserves the law’s protection, and any institution of higher education that engages in unlawful housing discrimination will be held accountable.»

Both universities denied engaging in discriminatory housing practices.

A University of Minnesota spokesperson told Fox News Digital the school wasn’t aware of the probe from HUD’s Office of Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity, but argued the school’s programs are compliant with «federal regulations, guidelines and anti-discrimination laws.» HUD confirmed to Fox News Digital it sent notice of the investigation to the university ahead of publication. 

«The University’s Living Learning Communities are open to all students, regardless of race or ethnicity, which is clearly stated on our website,» the spokesperson said. «The University is diligent in its compliance with federal regulations, guidelines and anti-discrimination laws.»

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However, the Equal Protection Project’s complaint cited by HUD appeared to anticipate UMN’s defense, arguing that the school’s «open to all» disclaimer does not resolve the alleged problem because the university still «expressly defines and markets» the residential communities around race or ethnicity. 

«Such perfunctory non-discrimination language does not cure the racial steering violation,» the complaint says.

The Washington Ave. bridge on the campus of the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, Minnesota on April 2, 2022. (Photo by Kirby Lee/Getty Images)

The complaint points to UMN materials describing Huntley House as a community «designed for Black men,» Charlotte’s House as «designed for Black women,» CASA SOL as «designed for Latinx students» and Tsev Hmoob as «designed for Hmong American students,» all of which provide housing and programmatic benefits including peer mentoring, academic support, community events and shared residential space for selected students.

The complaint also alleges UMN added its «open to all» language to at least three of the programs sometime after March 17, 2026, based on internet archive history, and argues that the late-added disclaimer does not cure the alleged violation. Instead, the complaint says, the added language suggests the university was aware its race-based descriptions and opens them to legal liability.

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Meanwhile, UConn also denied discriminating in campus housing.

«UConn does not discriminate on the basis of race, gender, or any other aspect of identity, including in our on-campus housing,» a university spokesperson told Fox News Digital. 

«UConn is home to nearly 20 different interdisciplinary living and learning communities within on-campus housing, all of which are organized around students who may have similar interests, backgrounds, or academic pursuits, including the three that were specifically named,» the spokesperson continued. «However, these communities are open to all students and no student is denied access to these communities based on their identity.»

But the Equal Protection Project complaint cited by HUD in conjunction with its new probe argues that UConn’s housing programs, which also offer student support services, may still amount to unlawful racial steering even if students outside the named groups are not formally barred. 

UConn’s housing descriptions for ScHOLA²RS House, BSOUL House and La Comunidad Intelectual, the complaint alleged, have been promoted in a manner that could signal to other students that the housing programs are not intended for them. The complaint points specifically to the schools’ promotional materials and social media posts, arguing the housing the programs’ titles, descriptions and imagery are likely to steer non-Black or non-Hispanic students away from applying, regardless of whether UConn intended to discriminate.

The University of Connecticut, Hartford campus on April 1, 2026.  (Ryan Caron King/Connecticut Public via Getty Images)

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«This information steers individuals (‘ordinary readers’) towards and away from dormitory housing based on these preferences in violation of the FHA,» the complaint against UConn states, adding that the allegation holds «even if UConn in fact has no discriminatory intent.»

The complaint highlights how UConn’s learning communities allow students to live together while participating in shared academic courses, mentoring and co-curricular programming, and says the named programs also promote support including academic and social or emotional support, research opportunities, professional development, seminar courses, events and shared community space.

«When parents entrust their children to universities, they expect these institutions to cultivate independent thinkers who will engage with life’s permanent questions, pursue truth, beauty, and goodness, and carry forward the great intellectual, moral, and cultural inheritance of Western civilization,» Assistant Secretary for Fair Housing and Equal Opportunity Craig Trainor told Fox News Digital. 

«Too often, however, these young Americans arrive on campus only to be steered toward racially segregated housing arrangements that divide students, create unequal experiences, and betray the core principles of a classical liberal education,» he concluded. «We will fully investigate the allegations against the University of Connecticut and the University of Minnesota to determine if they are, in fact, violating the Fair Housing Act and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964.»

Si me preguntan, digo que soy más argentina que el Obelisco. Soy argentina, fuera del país me reconocen en la calle otros argentinos, yo los reconozco a ellos. Kolesnicov, me llamo. Patricia Kolesnicov: no es un apellido diaguita. Ni coya. Ni guaraní. Ni, bueno, español.

Hace un tiempo, con compañeros periodistas teníamos una regla: si aparecía en algún cable que venía del extranjero un apellido como el mío y un nombre en castellano, había que sospechar que ahí había un argentino. Acertamos varias veces.

Soy argentinísima y, en las fiestas, cocino pastrón con arroz turco. El pastrón es una delicia de los judíos de Europa del Este. El arroz turco es lo que acá conocemos como “pilav” y es oriental: porque soy argentina, judía y en parte de Europa del Este pero allá atrás hay también bisabuelos turcos. Se mezclaron en Buenos Aires, claro.

Dicho esto: por el pasillo llegan otros olores. Mi vecina, de familia italiana, nos mata con la salsa. Pero, ¿qué otros apellidos tiene detrás, cuántas historias? Si mi mezcla fueron judíos rusos y turcos, ¿cómo fue la de mi vecina?

Pienso apellidos argentinos: Pueyrredón, Menem, Quispe, Sato, Sturzenegger, Rossi, Tavares, O’Donnell, García, Kim, Kicillof, Mamani., Pien, Ndiaye. ¿Sigo? ¿Cuál es menos argentino? En este país, los apellidos tienen fecha de llegada: tarde o temprano, a nadie le llaman la atención.

Soy argentinísima y voy a lo de mi argentinísima amiga Sánchez que hace.. bagna cauda. En el supermercado chino de la otra cuadra me atiende una verdulera de Cochabamba -Bolivia- y mientras las dos compramos tomates, hablo con otro vecino, un joven coreano, que acaba de apoyar en el suelo su bolsa de carbón: habrá asado el día del partido, me dice. Y hay que prepararse. Frente al televisor, mi compañera de facultad de apellido francés insulta de una manera que hubiera puesto colorada a mi abuela. Y no en francés, justamente.

Entre aproximadamente 1870 y 1914 llegaron a la Argentina unos 5,9 millones de inmigrantes, de los cuales más de la mitad se radicó definitivamente. En el censo de 1914, casi el 30% de la población había nacido en el extranjero, una de las proporciones más altas del mundo. En la ciudad de Buenos Aires, los extranjeros rondaban el 50 %.

No fue casualidad todo esto: en el plan de Juan Bautista Alberdi, cuando se estaba imaginando el país en el siglo XIX, decía claro “Gobernar es poblar”. Él no pensaba, sin embargo, en poblar a mansalva, era selectivo: “Poblar es civilizar cuando se puebla con gente civilizada, es decir, con pobladores de la Europa civilizada . ( . . .) Pero poblar no es civilizar, sino embrutecer, cuando se puebla con chinos y con indios de Asia y con negros de África” . Por eso la Constitución nacional sigue teniendo, en su artículo 25, una directiva: favorecer la inmigración europea.

Mala suerte, Alberdi. Vinimos, de todos lados. Vinimos los pobres, los perseguidos, los que nadie quería, aquellos a quienes la Revolución Industrial había dejado sin trabajo, aquellos que escapamos de los pogroms, aquellos que huimos de la guerra, aquellos a quienes el ejército entró a buscarnos a casa, aquellos que buscábamos una vida mejor porque la que teníamos no estaba bien. Nadie se va a vivir a otro país si nada en la libertad, la seguridad y la abundancia., Nadie se va a otro lugar del mundo por pasear, nadie deja su casa, su forma de hablar, nadie se va a jugar de visitante por los lindos paisajes: ni en el siglo XIX ni ahora.

Ahora, digo, que vinieron tantos venezolanos, que endulzan el español rioplatense con su castellano, que hacen que las arepas -¿y los tequeños?- se empiecen a hacer un lugar en los menúes porteños. Sus apellidos suelen ser españoles: en las listas no se ven.

Durante el Mundial, se nos dijo “racistas”. Por favor: los negros que llegaron como esclavos -los trajeron aquellos europeos, ¿no?- perdieron sus apellidos, en general, y fueron bautizados como sus amos. Algunos fueron a la guerra de la Triple Alianza como soldados, algunos murieron en la fiebre amarilla porque vivían en los barrios pobres donde la epidemia pegó más fuerte. Spoiler: nadie sale rico de la esclavitud. ¿Dónde están? Las historias familiares -y las caras que nos cruzamos en las calles- muestran una historia que quedó escondida tras el relato de la argentina blanca: nos mezclamos, otra vez. Y, también la ola migratoria enorme, de Europa. No la Europa que quería Alberdi, pero la tez más o menos clara.

A principios de siglo llegaron también los japoneses. Y los caboverdianos. En los 70 y 80, chinos y coreanos. Más africanos vinieron desde los 90: de Senegal, de Ghana, de Nigeria. Sus apellidos todavía “se ven”, mientras que Messi, Menem, Mac Allister ya se perciben, simplemente, como argentinos. Algunos apellidos todavía nos llaman la atención. Otros dejaron de hacerlo. Quizá dentro de cincuenta años ocurra lo mismo con Kim o Ndiaye. Y, junto a los apellidos de quienes llegaron, siguen estando los de quienes nunca tuvieron que llegar: Quispe, Mamani, Catrileo. Porque la historia argentina no empezó con los barcos.

Basta recorrer una guía telefónica —o, hoy, un padrón electoral o una red social— para leer una historia de la Argentina. Los apellidos cuentan la conquista española, la supervivencia de pueblos originarios como los mapuches y los andinos, la gran inmigración italiana y española de fines del siglo XIX, la llegada de judíos, sirio-libaneses, armenios y galeses, las corrientes japonesas, coreanas y chinas del siglo XX y las migraciones africanas y latinoamericanas más recientes. Pero también cuentan silencios: los apellidos africanos que la esclavitud borró y muchos apellidos indígenas que fueron reemplazados por otros, castellanos. Más que un catálogo de orígenes, el mapa de los apellidos argentinos es una síntesis de cinco siglos de conquistas, migraciones, mezclas e integraciones.

Al final, “Kolesnicov”, no habla tanto sobre mí como sobre un camino que, también, es la historia del mundo. No se castellanizó, no hizo falta ni me obligaron. Si alguien me pregunta un nombre argentino, le doy este: Patricia Kolesnicov. Y sí, el pastrón queda espectacular con tapa de asado: la mezcla también es argentina.

UNITED NATIONS — The Democratic Republic of Congo does not view growing American involvement in its critical-minerals industry as a contest with China, the country’s foreign minister told Fox News Digital, arguing that Kinshasa needs multiple partners to transform its vast natural wealth into prosperity for its people.

«I don’t like talking about competition. I like talking about complementarity,» Foreign Minister Thérèse Kayikwamba Wagner said in an exclusive interview at the United Nations.

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«A country as big as the USA, but also a country as big as the DRC and as big as China, they do not develop just with one single partner,» she added. «They develop with different partnerships that respond to different needs and that bring different expertise to the table.»

The comments come as the Trump administration seeks to increase American access to Congo’s copper, cobalt, lithium, gold and other strategic resources, while reducing U.S. reliance on mineral supply chains dominated by China.

A strategic partnership signed by Washington and Kinshasa on Dec. 4, 2025, calls for increased economic cooperation, investment and the development of secure and transparent critical-mineral supply chains. The agreement accompanied a broader regional framework linking economic integration to efforts to end decades of conflict between Congo and Rwanda.

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Excavators and drillers at work in an open pit at Tenke Fungurume, a copper and cobalt mine 110 km (68 miles) northwest of Lubumbashi in Congo’s copper-producing south, January 29, 2013. (REUTERS/Jonny Hogg/File Photo)

A separate arrangement involving DR Congo’s state mining company Gécamines and commodities trader Mercuria could give U.S. buyers priority access to some copper and cobalt supplies, Reuters reported on Dec. 5, 2025. The U.S. International Development Finance Corporation also expressed interest in taking a strategic stake in the partnership.

Kayikwamba Wagner said relations between the U.S. and DR Congo were taking «a more concrete shape» based on mutual economic interests.

She said Kinshasa welcomed «more U.S. interests in the DRC» that could help the country turn its mineral wealth into «tangible transformations for the lives of Congolese,» while also delivering benefits to American partners.

Speaking separately at a high-level U.N. meeting on critical minerals Tuesday, Kayikwamba Wagner warned that the global shift toward clean energy must not reproduce an economic model in which raw materials leave Africa while processing, technology and most of the profits remain elsewhere.

«The global energy transition must not become another extractive transition,» she said. «If it merely replaces one form of dependency with another, it will have fallen short of its promise.»

She called for foreign partnerships to support local processing, infrastructure, technology transfers, research, industrialization and access to financing — not simply secure supplies of raw materials.

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M23 rebels stand with their weapons in Kibumba, in the eastern of Democratic Republic of Congo, Dec. 23, 2022. M23, a rebel group with alleged links to Rwanda, has seized Rubaya, a mining town in eastern Congo known for producing a key mineral used in smartphones, the group said Thursday, May 2, 2024, in a statement. (AP Photo/Moses Sawasawa)

The minerals push is closely connected to the U.S.-mediated peace process between the DRC and Rwanda. The countries initially signed a peace agreement in Washington on June 27, 2025, before Presidents Félix Tshisekedi and Paul Kagame reaffirmed the deal and signed related economic agreements on Dec. 4. The framework was intended both to reduce fighting and attract Western investment to a region rich in cobalt, copper, tantalum and other minerals.

Kayikwamba Wagner acknowledged that the agreement had not ended the violence, but said Washington’s willingness to impose consequences for violations showed that the process remained meaningful.

«This is a 30-year conflict we’re dealing with,» she said. «It’s not going to happen overnight.»

She praised the administration for sanctioning the Rwanda Defense Force and senior Rwandan officials over what the Treasury Department described as their support for the M23 rebel group. Treasury said in March that the RDF had supported, trained and fought alongside M23 as it seized territory and strategic mining locations in eastern Congo. Rwanda has repeatedly denied supporting M23.

«I find it encouraging to see that we have with us a partner that is not willing to give up at the first obstacle,» Kayikwamba Wagner said.

She was in New York as the DRC, which holds the Security Council presidency for July, elevated the connection between natural resources, armed conflict and sexual violence.

Kayikwamba Wagner said rape and other forms of conflict-related sexual violence had risen sharply in areas held by M23 and Rwandan forces, affecting women and girls as well as men and boys.

Victims in occupied areas, she said, often lack access to courts, healthcare or other avenues for redress.

«This is also one of the reasons why we continue to be mobilized against this illegal occupation of eastern DRC,» she said, arguing that restoring state authority was essential to providing survivors with justice and medical care.

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President Donald Trump arrives for a signing ceremony with Rwanda’s President Paul Kagame and Democratic Republic of Congo President Felix-Antoine Tshisekedi at the Donald J. Trump Institute of Peace, Thursday, Dec. 4, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

In her U.N. remarks, she cited the Rubaya mining area, which is under M23 control and supplies a significant share of global tantalum demand. She said U.N. experts estimated that at least 1,400 tons of coltan were smuggled into Rwanda during the first year after the mines were seized, generating approximately $800,000 per month for the armed group.

The Treasury department imposed additional sanctions on June 25 against a network it accused of working with M23 to smuggle minerals from eastern Congo into Rwanda, saying the action was intended to support the Washington peace framework and improve transparency in regional mineral supply chains.