Minnesota Senate joins House in repealing Cesar Chavez Day in wake of sex abuse allegations
The Minnesota Senate on Thursday unanimously passed a bill to repeal Cesar Chavez Day in the state following allegations of sexual abuse against the labor and civil rights leader.
The state House made the same move earlier in the week, and the bill now heads to Gov. Tim Walz's desk.
A New York Times investigation first surfaced the allegations against Chavez, which included years of abuse of minors. Dolores Huerta, cofounder of the National Farm Workers Association, wrote on social media she was "manipulated and pressured into having sex" with Chavez in the 1960s.
"I am nearly 96 years old, and for the last 60 years have kept a secret because I believed that exposing the truth would hurt the farmworker movement I have spent my entire life fighting for," Huerta wrote.
Gov. Mark Dayton in 2014 signed a bill establishing March 31 — the late labor leader's birthday — as Cesar Chavez Day. In St. Paul, both a street and a school bear Chavez's name. The founder of the school intends to rebrand it, and Mayor Kaohly Her plans to pull a stakeholder group together to discuss the street's future.
Note: The video above originally aired March 23, 2026.
