Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren is under increasing criticism over her listing herself as a Native American as a law professor — a status reported by Harvard Law School in counting her as a minority faculty member. There is limited evidence that Warren is indeed Native American. At most, the degree of indian blood is extremely low. Warren has answered the criticism by saying that she was not trying to use minority status for her own professional benefit but to establish personal associations. The controversy has caused a buzz among law professors as to the definition of minority status for professors and students alike.
Warren listed herself as a Native American minority for years on the directory of law professors. She insisted in an interview this week that “I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off,.”
Warren is a very talented academic and I do not share the view that she was given her position at Harvard (or received her well-deserved praise as an academic) due to the claim of being a minority.
There is a mixed record on the question of her great great great grandmother. The article below says that genealogists at the New England Historic Genealogical Society were unable to support claims that her great great great grandmother is Cherokee. O.C. Sarah Smith is listed on an electronic transcript of a 1894 marriage application as Cherokee but they have been unable to find the original record. However, it would seem to be that the electronic record should give Warren the benefit of the doubt as to her beliefs in her ancestry. That does not entirely answer the question, however. Even if true, such a connection would constitute a reported 1/32 part Native American. Many Americans have such a small connection to Native Americans.
Is it relevant to running for political office if voters believe that Warren wrongly claimed or exaggerated minority status? I see no reason why someone should not claim ancestry tied to Native Americans, no matter how tangential. While I expect that there are a couple dozen of other bloodlines and cultures in the Warren family with equal or greater presence, it is clearly something that the family took pride in as part of its history.
Putting aside the hyper partisanship that seems to warp all analysis these days, there remains some difficult questions for the legal academy. While I do not believe that Warren’s well-earned success was due to this claim, she did make the claim for years and being a minority law professor does work to the advantage of both the academic and the school as institutions work to increase their minority numbers of both students and professors. The controversy also highlights the uncertain standards for claims of minority status among law schools. We are currently in the midst of a scandal over inflated employment numbers and the effort to impose concrete standards for how to count employment. Do we need the same reexamination of the claim of minority status or should it be entirely self-defined for each academic?
What do you think?
Source: Boston Herald
One of my colleagues is Melungeon. They do not have a box labeled “OMG” on most forms.
OT??
Elizabeth Warren for President.
Far bettter than Billary, that program we are tired of hearing.
How did Warren do on the Tarp commission for Congress?
I am proud of Professor Warren, and intend to follow her example, listing myself as being 1/32 of one or more minorities whenever such an unprovable designation might help me even slightly. That way, I will have better odds of being invited to lunch, or getting into college, or winning a hiring preference, or gaining access to heretofore-unreachable cash, or being invited to speak to others in my oppressed community(ies). Such bold leadership on race should be emulated! Huzzah!
Not having read the comments, I express my views anyway:
While not wishing to deny anyone his minority rights; instittution or person, I do look forward to´the day when these injustices are righted. How nice it will be to not have to say: “I’m not a racist”. or the silly: “I have many muslim friends”. The right to pride is not to be denied to them, but I hope it is to be accepted as a full value person to which they long It was and as yet is a denied status in the many minds who meet them..
Looks like Senator Scott Brown’s machine may be gearing up to swiftboat Elizabeth Warren. The Wall Street banksters who support Brown do not want to see Warren elected to the Senate. I expect to see more attacks like this on her character.
Who is a Native American?
As a general principle an Indian is a person who is of some degree Indian blood and is recognized as an Indian by a tribe/village and/or the United States. There exists no universally accepted rule for establishing a person’s identity as an Indian. The criteria for tribal membership differs from one tribe to the next. To determine a particular tribe’s criteria, one must contact that tribe directly. For its own purposes, the Bureau of the Census counts anyone an Indian who declares to be such. By recent counts, there are more than 2.4 million Native Americans, including Native Alaskans and Native Hawaiians.
http://www.narf.org/pubs/misc/faqs.html
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What she said she is she is…unlike many politicians….
Excerpt from the Boston Herald article:
Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren, fending off questions about whether she used her Native American heritage to advance her career, said today she enrolled herself as a minority in law school directories for nearly a decade because she hoped to meet other people with tribal roots.
“I listed myself in the directory in the hopes that it might mean that I would be invited to a luncheon, a group something that might happen with people who are like I am. Nothing like that ever happened, that was clearly not the use for it and so I stopped checking it off,” said Warren.
*****
Ohmigod! What a terrible woman! She listed herself in a directory as Native American. Who’s asking “those questions” that Warren has been “fending” off? Were they questions planted in the media by big money PACs that support pretty boy Brown?
Good grief is this the best the Brown acolytes can do to besmirch Warren’s character?????
P.S. The Boston Herald is a conservative tabloid–only good to have around the house when one is house training puppies.
I think it would be nice for a woman, and a woman who is proud of her Native ancestry, to be in the Senate. There are so few of them, of either category.
Nice summary of the points of this latest political jab by J.T. If Elizabeth Warren had gained some unfair advantage by listing herself as a Native American, then there would be something for Scott Brown to make hay of. But, so far we’ve not seen a scintilla of evidence that this has been the case. So, this amounts to just dumb political mud-slinging. I’d like to see both candidates focusing on some of the important issues for a change.
It is in the cheekbones.
If Winston Churchill can claim Iroquois ancestry from his socialite New York mother, Jenny Jerome, then us folks here in the states with 1/32 Cherokee blood can claim it too. For four hundred years Cherokee were told to hide it if they could, that they would be discriminated against. Lets see a show of hands on the jury venire panel of fifty five in Joplin, Missouri, for those that have Indian ancestory. In a jury trial twenty five years ago I got a show of hands of 46 out of 50. We are a nation of assimilation as well as castigation. Besides, she looks Cherokee.
I don’t know how being 1/32 part of a minority makes one a minority too when there’s a 31/32 part of you that isn’t. And if one wants to acquaint oneself with those who are part of that minority, then there’s all sorts of other organizations outside of your workplace with which you can join.
OS is correct. This is a political response from the Brown campaign to stifle a worthy opponent. If the Republicans are to be believed, every white woman is a minority due to the Mexicans flooding into our country.
Shouldn’t the standard for reporting depend on the purpose.
If the question is raised in the general census, perhaps the most important fact is self perception and corresponding self reporting.
If the question is raised in connection with a benchmark to measure the possibility of institutional racism, then perhaps the standards should include something in addition to self reporting.
But her response is curious. Apparently she list herself this way in the hope that the listing would help her meet some one with that kind of background. It never occurred to me before that the aspiration to meet someone was a tie to the community.
If this is the best her opponents can do in attacking her credentials,. let ’em have at it. It’s amazing how frightened the corporate clans are of this woman.
Minority status is a designation offered by the academic institutions. Exactly what it does for enrollment is probably rated by some mousy little guy in a basement office who will lose his job if the designation is abandoned.
Warren recognized the advantages that the minority status would offer her career and to Harvard’s claims of diversity.
Does Warren really believe that her family suffered in the same way as Native Americans have, and that she is entitled to the benefits of making such a marginal claim?
In this case, it’s political hay being gathered. Think of all the obvious stuff her opponents had to go through to find something on her! We need more women like her to clean house in the Senate. Go, Elizabeth!!
A century of the institutionalization of propaganda has had an impact on every American.
Hell, corporations claim to be people.
I doubt they have even 1/32 of people in them, because they are mostly paper and ink.
Still, Liz made a mistake whatever her reasons were. I think her opponent Scott, has more redneck blood in him than he lets on too.
The people who seem to have their knickers in a twist about this are not people whose opinions I value. She is who she is. No one is a “pure” anything anymore. This country is a melting pot of ethnicity and race.
Where I take issue is the scorekeeping of who is of what racial identity, as if that means something. Breaking News! The racial identity of a professor takes a very distant back seat to what they know and the subject matter they are able to impart to the students who pay good money to occupy a desk in the classroom.