According to their website: "The Humanities Action Lab (HAL) is a coalition of universities, issue organizations, and public spaces in 40 cities, and growing, led from Rutgers University-Newark, that collaborate to produce community-curated public humanities projects on urgent social issues. Students and stakeholders in each city develop local chapters of international traveling exhibits, web projects, public programs, and other platforms for civic engagement, all made possible by our visionary supporters. Projects travel nationally and internationally to museums, public libraries, cultural centers, and other spaces in each of the communities that helped create them."

"Manoomin" is the Ojibwe word for "wild rice." As a relative, Manoomin is afforded certain rights by several Indigenous nations throughout Minnesota. Some of these rights include the right to a freshwater habitat, the right to be free from industrial pollution, and the right to be free from patenting.

The Unviersity of Minnesota-Twin Cities has violated some of these rights by performing genetic testing on wild rice strands, mapping the genome, and patenting new genetic forms of wild rice. University researchers did not consult tribes in the region, nor did they respect Indigenous understandings of Manoomin.