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
@Tony C. “a proxy for: unequal socioeconomic circumstances due to past institutionalized discrimination by race, gender, and religion.”
Good point. There are risks to developing and keeping records regarding ethnic background.
But we care about ethnic background because of the past.
It is a complex subject. But it is hard to see how we can measure our progress with out some kind of awareness of our background.
On balance, it would seem that not keeping count is more dangerous than keeping count.
According to scientists, we are 99% bugs genetically.
We have 1 human cell for each 10 bug cells.
Women could not give birth but for a bug gene.
I know of an honest professor who is a sociopath and borderline psychopath, by his own words.
He is way cool.
Let’s not get all bugeyed about being bugs, natives, or even human.
This is quite frankly bullshit pulled out to sully a candidate who threatens the corporate power structure. I’m glad I’m not a candidate for office, since in front of witnesses 50 years ago my High School Principal admonished me to “get my mind above my belt”. This charge against Warren is bogus. As Elaine stated:
“Keep in mind that there is not a shred of evidence that Warren ever benefitted in any way from her self-identification; indeed, every university who’s hired her in the course of her very distinguished academic career has indicated they weren’t even aware of it, and certainly didn’t make it a factor in employing her.”
I persoally believe that if elected she will be the Senator with the most integrity from the jump, save for Bernie Saders and that frightens corporations.
Note, the militaristic stance on anything Israeli can be found directly on her web site (and it has been considerably toned down over the last couple of weeks):
http://elizabethwarren.com/issues/national-security-foreign-policy
including her assertion that Iran is developing Nuclear weapons (“[…]Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons, it is an active state sponsor of terrorism,[…]”) when even the Obama administration has explicitly denied that this is currently the case and the closest they can come to proving Iran is a sponsor of terrorism is Iran’s statement that they “will defend [themselves] if attacked”. By that definition, “Defending oneself if attacked”, which is essentially what all the major news papers used as proof — including the New Yourk Times — we would easily qualify as a state sponsor of terrorism as well.
I’m Norwegian , French,
German and Dutch;
A little bit Cherokee,
But not too much.
Elaine, Warren would not have qualified for money under any federal NA grant program. So how could she have benefited?
I have known many people who are part Cherokee, including a famous black jazz musician, all of them are now proud of having some NA heritage.
She should note that she is also approximately 50% male; her father was male, both of her grandfathers were male, etc.
More seriously, I think the “minority race” rules are inherently discriminatory and should all be abolished.
The criterion to address should be what the “minority status” was a proxy for: unequal socioeconomic circumstances due to past institutionalized discrimination by race, gender, and religion.
I thought Elizabeth Warren was tops (though I assume that will change some or a lot due to the way the Senate works) until I read this.
http://mondoweiss.net/2012/02/surprise-courageous-elizabeth-warren-is-craven-on-israel-lobby.html
This will have little impact on her run for the Senate. She will probably win it fairly easily as Brown was purely a gut reaction to the ghastly Martha Coakley who was all for eliminating the public option and all for the Stupac amendment (eliminating Federal funding for abortion) as long as it was what Obama wanted and who never refused a campaign contribution from the giant insurance corporations (who crafted the health care
fiascolegislation) when they offered one to her. And they offered more than one.Massachusetts is a liberal state and they are not distracted quite as much as some states by things like simply using the name “Democrat” to cover up extreme right wing positions as “progresive” the way they do when they refer to newspapers or NPR or PBS as having a “liberal bias” . A ploy which, alas, works all to often all too well. But that being said, I think Warren’s militaristic stance for anything Israel to the determent of any sane approach to the Middle East will be muted or whited out for “liberal” consumption at least until the election is over.
The Smearing of Elizabeth Warren
By Ed Kilgore
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/political-animal-a/2012_05/the_smearing_of_elizabeth_warr037062.php
Excerpt:
Until today, I was only vaguely aware that Scott Brown’s campaign and its allies were trying to make a big deal out of Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s past self-identification (and once, her identification by Harvard Law School) as a “Native American.” It mainly caught my attention because, like Warren (and for that matter, like many white people I’ve known from North Georgia or Oklahoma), I have a Cherokee ancestor, a great-great-grandmother as it happpens, though I’ve never self-identified myself that way.
Then I ran across a Boston Herald (the original source of the whole story) column by a certain Howie Carr that shows exactly how ugly and overtly racial this attack-line has become. It’s not, in fact, really about Elizabeth Warren, but about an increasingly aggressive effort on the Right to invent a nightmare-world where incompetent women and minorities are lording it over the poor afflicted white male.
Keep in mind that there is not a shred of evidence that Warren ever benefitted in any way from her self-identification; indeed, every university who’s hired her in the course of her very distinguished academic career has indicated they weren’t even aware of it, and certainly didn’t make it a factor in employing her.
That doesn’t deter Carr from asserting that “Pocohantas” Warren “parlayed the racial-spoils racket all the way to a tenured position at Harvard Law,” or that her case “shows just how morally and intellectually bankrupt ‘affirmative action’ is.” For good measure, he lurches into an equally unsubstantiated claim that President Obama got a “free pass to Columbia and Harvard Law” because of his race.
I’m 1/16th NA. I think that is the usual tribe and federal cutoff for Federal scholarship money or membership in most tribes. Proving it is another matter. My grandfather hid his heritage from society his whole life. He was worried they would force him to live on the rez……..if you could pass for white back then, you did so with no regrets.
Puzzling:
an even more radical idea – why dont we do away with diversity and let the most able person be hired regardless of race or sex.
Maybe we should all take a page from professional sports and hire the most able regardless of race. Competition and excellence seems to promote camaraderie and bonhomie among the races in professional sports.
Being truthful is always a virtue, especially for politicians.
This revelation gives me some pause and disappoints, because I think Ms Warren is a great candidate and outstanding citizen. If a body wants to associate with minorities, one reaches out in true friendship on “their turf.” One doesn’t wait to be invited to cocktail parties. Her reasons seem lame. I wish she had just conceded, “I did it. I shouldn’t have done it. I stopped doing it N. years ago.” and then move on. No excuses. No justifications. Apologize with sincerity and be direct. Then move on.
Todd
mespo,
Has an accusation been made that Warren used minority status when applying for positions at colleges/universities?
Ok I think I get it.
According to current standards she can claim just about affiliation she pleases.
Media attention to her claims are likely driven by political considerations.
But pardon me while i stifle a giggle that she has any affinity at all for this group.
She can say it, I can laugh at it – whats the problem.
BTW, I had been hoping for an invite to dinner too. The actual records have been lost in the mists of time, but if am one 32nd film star. Cameron Diaz where are you?
Should institutions adopt a DNA standard for such claims?
Mespo – well said.
Speaking of OMG boxes, where do we “street hybrids” list ourselves? I guess we are not accorded minority status anyway. And as for the melting pot, if anyone cherishes their heritage, then should be able to openly show it—–as long as they don’t do it on my front yard or in my bathroom.
The bed is however open territory, so it was in my heritage.
Blonde haired, blue-eyed New Englanders (via working class parents in Oklahoma) have no business passing themselves off as “minorities” for any reason. This looks like bureaucratic embellishing to shine up minority credentials for the school, Ms. Warren’s plea of enhancing her professional networking opportunities notwithstanding. (Maybe even that purpose is an abuse). At the least, it’s quite unseemly and flat wrong if a true minority person was passed up in the hiring process in deference to her and her rather expansive view of just what constitutes a “minority” and the disadvantaged status it undoubtedly connotes.
Well, she is red. But then communists arent a minority at Harvard.
Elaine,
thanks for the tip. I think I’ll get me a couple puppies just to have a chance to show my respect for their journalism.
If it is in the cheekbones, then I must be one-fourth, but actually one-sixteeth.
No, in truth the cheekbones are there, but the linkage is by way of marriage not in direct lineage. She was elevated to be a princess (?) by virtue of her husband, and was beautiful as a blue sky.
Indian are popular now. How about a nation right in the middle of the corn belt?