Buried in its correction section, The Boston Globe has issued a retraction of its claim that a marriage license supporting the claim of U.S. Senate Candidate and Law Professor Elizabeth Warren that she is part Cherokee. The correction says that no such marriage license has ever been found and that the reference comes from a “family newsletter” and refers to an application for a marriage license. Moreover, no one has been able to find the paper, let alone study it. In the meantime, the Warren campaign is addressing new disclosures that Warren claimed to be a minority not just at Harvard but also at the University of Pennsylvania. Today another news story reported that Warren (who denied knowledge of being listed as a minority) was cited as “Harvard’s first woman of color” in a Fordham Law Review piece — quoting a Harvard official.
The Boston Globe earlier published an account that became the primary defense for Warren supporters:
A record unearthed Monday shows that US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has a great-great-great grandmother listed in an 1894 document as a Cherokee, said a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society.
The shred of evidence could validate her assertion that she has Native American ancestry, making her 1/32 American Indian, but may not put an end to the questions swirling around the subject….
Chris Child, a genealogist at the New England Historic and Genealogy Society, said he began digging into Warren’s family history on Thursday, when media interest emerged.
At first, he found no link between Warren’s family and Native Americans in her native Oklahoma.
But Monday afternoon, he said, he discovered a few links. Warren’s great-great-great grandmother, O.C. Sarah Smith, is listed on her son’s 1894 application for a marriage license as a Cherokee.
Now however the newspaper has said that that was not true:
Correction: Because of a reporting error, a story in the May 1 Metro section and the accompanying headline incorrectly described the 1894 document that was purported to list Elizabeth Warren’s great-great-great grandmother as a Cherokee. The document, alluded to in a family newsletter found by the New England Historic Genealogical Society, was an application for a marriage license, not the license itself. Neither the society nor the Globe has seen the primary document, whose existence has not been proven.
That seems like a pretty important disclosure to be simply pushed into the correction section of the newspaper.
In the meantime, the New York Times is reporting that Warren was not just listed as a minority faculty member at Harvard but also at University of Pennsylvania. At the very most, Warren is no more than 1/32 Cherokee, even if the account of the great great great grandmother is proven to be true.
As I have mentioned before, I do not believe that Warren was given her positions due to the claim of minority status. She is an extremely intelligent and talented academic. The claim as a minority however has caused a stir among academics who have been discussing the lack of any criteria for such claims. Minority status is an obvious advantage for a law professor as school strive to diversify their faculty ranks. Claiming minority status has an important impact on reporting academic data for schools as it does for governmental reporting.a
What is intriguing is the claim by Warren that she was not aware that she was listed as a minority when that status was asserted by both Penn and Harvard. I do not believe that she would be considered a minority by any conceivable definition without making most Americans minorities. Presumably, these schools did not arbitrarily claim such status for a faculty member, but had to be given an affirmative claim of being a minority by the faculty member. Yet, this process is remarkably fluid and ill-defined at schools. Schools are eager to list every possible minority members in annual reporting.
I am more interested in the general issue of how to define minority status than the campaign. But, putting aside the raw partisanship over the Senate race, how important should this issue in your view be in judging a candidate?
MA Senate Race Battle Between Wall Street’s Favorite Senator and Wall Street’s Toughest Critic
http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/ma-senate-race-battle-between-wall-streets
Excerpt:
Rachel Maddow took a look at Scott Brown’s record since entering the Senate where he has been called one of Wall Street’s favorite Congressmen and for good reason. As she reminded us, Brown’s contribution to the Wall Street regulatory overhaul was to make sure that the $19 billion it cost to pay for additional oversight was going to be dumped on the tax payers instead of the financial institutions footing the bill. And now he’s got donations flooding in from New York even though he’s running for office in Massachusetts.
And of course the other reason Wall Street is opening their wallets for Brown is because he’s the only thing standing between Elizabeth Warren and the United States Senate.
Elizabeth Warren called for Jamie Dimon to resign from the New York Fed this week:
Elizabeth Warren called on JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon to resign from his post on the Federal Reserve Bank of New York’s board, citing the need for “responsibility and accountability” in the financial industry.
Dimon, who disclosed a $2 billion loss by the banking giant last week, should “send a signal to the American people that Wall Street bankers get it and to show that they understand the need for responsibility and accountability,” Warren said in a statement following Dimon’s Sunday appearance on “Meet the Press.”
During that interview, Dimon said he “absolutely” believed that the enormous loss would give regulators more ammunition against the banks. Warren latched onto that comment, stating that Dimon’s place on the board of directors gave him the power to advise the New York Fed on “management oversight and policy,” creating what the Massachusetts Democrat feels is a clear conflict of interest.
“We need to stop the cycle of bankers taking on risky activities, getting bailed out by the taxpayers, then using their army of lobbyists to water down regulations,” Warren said. “We need a tough cop on the beat so that no one steals your purse on Main Street or your pension on Wall Street.”
Harvard: Warren Got Job Only On Merits As Teacher
By The Associated Press
May 7, 2012
http://www.wbur.org/2012/05/07/elizabeth-warren
BOSTON — A Harvard Law School professor and former Reagan administration official is calling “false” and “complete nonsense” any suggestion that Elizabeth Warren enjoyed an affirmative action advantage in her hiring as a full professor.
Harvard Law School professor Charles Fried, who served as U.S. Solicitor General under President Reagan, said the Democratic Senate candidate was recruited to be a tenured professor because she was preeminent in the fields of bankruptcy and commercial law.
Fried, a member of the appointments committee that reviewed Warren, said the subject of her Native American ancestry was never mentioned.
Fried said the notion that Warren “attained her position and maintains her reputation on anything other than her evident merit is complete nonsense.”
State Republican Party Chairman Bob Maginn had asked Harvard to review Warren’s hiring.
Elizabeth Warren Did Not Claim Minority Status, Records Show
By STEVE LeBLANC 05/10/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/10/elizabeth-warren-minority-status_n_1508060.html
Excerpt:
BOSTON — Records show that the leading Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Massachusetts identified her race as “white” on an employment record at the University of Texas and declined to apply for admission to Rutgers Law School under a program for minority students.
The records on Elizabeth Warren were obtained by The Associated Press on Thursday. Warren’s heritage has been under scrutiny after it surfaced that she had listed herself as having Native American heritage in law school directories.
Warren’s campaign said the records reinforce her earlier statements that she never relied on a claim of minority status to get teaching jobs. She has criticized the campaign of Republican U.S. Sen. Scott Brown for suggesting that might be the case.
*****
The Racist Assault on Elizabeth Warren
by Paul Canning
May 7, 2012
http://www.care2.com/causes/the-racist-assault-on-elizabeth-warren.html
Excerpt:
Many Native Americans are angry at the GOP assault on Elizabeth Warren for, Republicans claim, misusing her ancestry to advance her career.
Last month, the Boston Herald reported that Harvard Law School had listed Warren, the presumed Democratic candidate for Senator in Massachusetts, as a minority professor to deflect criticism that it lacked diverse faculty. Sitting Senator Scott Brown’s campaign and right-wing media have not let up, even though it has since been reported that Warren definitely is one 32nd Cherokee.
Warren told reporters on May 2 that she listed herself as a minority in Harvard’s directory in order to connect with others like her, “people for whom ‘Native American’ is part of their heritage and part of their hearts. There aren’t a lot of people like me in law teaching. And so I just thought I might find some others. That’s evidently not a particularly good use for the directory because it never happened.” That’s why, she says, that she stopped calling herself a minority in the directories after having done so for almost a decade.
Warren says she was qualified for her position, and the Native aspect didn’t play a role in her hiring, which has been backed up by the Harvard officials who hired her.
But people like conservative blogger and Fox News contributor Michelle Malkin have not let up, calling Warren names like “Pinocchio-hontas,” “Chief Full-of-Lies,” “Running Joke” and “Sacaja-whiner.”
Donna Akers, a professor with the Department of History and Native American Studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, told Indian Country Today that she is skeptical of the conservative outrage:
“I think this is simply a cynical ploy by right-wing propagandists trying to find a piece of mud that sticks against Warren,” she says. Akers believes Republican politicians sometimes use racial issues to divide voters and to play on their insecurities. In this case, she says that the Brown campaign is trying to make it seem like a white person may have lost out on a position due to Warren’s situation.
“Smearing Warren by the suggestion that she benefited unfairly by claiming Native ancestry panders to the racism extant in many sectors of the right wing—especially the working class,” Akers says. “The Republican Party today solidly embraces a thinly veiled racist agenda that privileges white Americans at the expense of Native Americans and other peoples of color in the United States.”
…
“The mainstream media definitely has added to this controversy due to their well-known ignorance about tribal citizenship and other tribal issues,” says Julia Good Fox, a professor at Haskell Indian Nations University. Good Fox notes that the media has largely failed to explain tribal citizenry and blood quantum issues to give context to the situation because these aren’t easy stories to tell. It’s easier to label the case ‘convoluted,’ blame Warren, and move on to the next political gotcha story.
“Unfortunately, for the most part, their coverage is just adding to the confusion and threatens to feed racism or anti-Indianism,” Good Fox says. To do better, she says the media should start by noting that tribal nations have a right to determine who their citizens are, rather than focusing on the misunderstood notion that tribal citizens can only be determined by U.S.-imposed mathematical fractions.
Writing for Politico, Sarah Burris, an Oklahoman like Warren, points out that the current chief of the Cherokee Tribe also is 1/32 Cherokee.
“Conservative commentators scoffed all last week at what they assert is Warren’s low percentage of native ancestry. Their problem — like most people who didn’t grow up in a place like Oklahoma — is they have no real frame of reference for how much blood is removed with each generation,” writes Burris.
“These commentators ignore a history tracing back to a mixed heritage, like Warren’s, that is the epitome of the American story. Seems like a double standard.”
This is perpetuation of a non-story. I’ll leave excerpts from and links to articles that I posted on the other Elizabeth Warren thread.
*****
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.
*****
Elizabeth Warren’s Birther Moment
http://campaignstops.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/04/elizabeth-warrens-birther-moment/
Excerpt:
If you are 1/32 Cherokee and your grandfather has high cheekbones, does that make you Native American? It depends. Last Friday, Republicans in Massachusetts questioned the racial ancestry of Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic Senate candidate. Her opponent, Senator Scott Brown, has accused her of using minority status as an American Indian to advance her career as a law professor at Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and the University of Texas. The Brown campaign calls her ties to the Cherokee and Delaware nations a “hypocritical sham.”
In a press conference on Wednesday, Warren defended herself, saying, “Native American has been a part of my story, I guess since the day I was born, I don’t know any other way to describe it.” Despite her personal belief in her origins, her opponents have seized this moment in an unnecessary fire drill that guarantees media attention and forestalls real debate.
This tactic is straight from the Republican cookbook of fake controversy. First, you need a rarefied elected office typically occupied by a certain breed of privileged men. Both the Presidency and the Senate fit this bill. Second, add a bit of interracial intrigue. It could be Kenyan economists eloping with Midwestern anthropologists, or white frontiersmen pairing with indigenous women. Third, throw in some suspicion about their qualifications and ambitions. Last but not least, demand documentation of ancestry and be dissatisfied upon its receipt. Voila! You have a genuine birther movement.
The Republican approach to race is to feign that it is irrelevant — until it becomes politically advantageous to bring it up. Birthers question Obama’s state of origin (and implicitly his multiracial heritage) in efforts to disqualify him from the presidency. They characterize him as “other.” For Warren, Massachusetts Republicans place doubts on her racial claims to portray her as an opportunistic academic seeking special treatment. In both birther camps, opponents look to ancestral origins as the smoking gun, and ride the ambiguity for the duration.
Proving Native American ancestry is a complex, bureaucratic process. It’s more than showing up at the tribal enrollment office with a family bible and some black and white pictures. Many people are rejected, even when family lore tells them otherwise. Tribal citizenship depends on descent from an enrolled ancestor, and every tribe has its own requirements.
“the danger of letting others determine someone’s ethnicity”
It seems to me that the assessment of risk with letting others determine ethnicity has to be considered in relation to use we make of information regarding ethnic identity.
The range, to my mind, seems enormous. Some make or renounce ethnic identity in their personal live and make no further use of it . The census asks for ethnic identity (some anyway) and we may presume that the data is used at least occasionally for score keeping. Academic and occasionally police department sometimes collect ethnic data and make both reasonable and unreasonable uses of it. As the WAPO article make clear, tribes make decisions regarding ethnic affiliation. Occasionally these decisions have big bucks or political power riding on the outcome.
I am sure others could come up with more applications of ethnic affiliation. How one answer could possibly account for all those different uses is a mystery to me.
Howard Boorman, one of the old China hands, once posed the question: how do you know when someone is Chinese. My recollection, he suggested: ask the person in question are you Chinese? Then ask a known Chinese do you consider him Chinese? If both answer yes then the person in question is Chinese. If either answers no then, no, the person is not Chinese.
Questions of ethnic background have some complexity. It would seem that the tests we use to determine ethnic background ought to give some consideration to the person, the group, and the intended purpose for collecting the information. That is the easy answer. After that it gets harder.
I delight in the fact that whether or not she ticked a minority box on paperwork she submitted……..is all they have. Gives new meaning to “grasping”.
As an academic myself, I think the answer to Dr. Turley’s question is: Zero.
I believe assistance should be given to students that have had more hardships than other students while growing up, but once somebody holds a doctorate, I think the playing field has been leveled enough, and considerations of race (and gender) should not be a consideration at all, either in government grants or faculty employment. Such decisions should be merit based, and based on whether the research the candidate is interested in is a good fit for the department’s overall goals, e.g. makes use of equipment we have, advances a specialty we want to be known for, offers collaborative opportunities with other professors, expands the offerings we have for our students, etc. (Being a good fit does not mean doing the same thing as everybody else; it is more like a jig-saw puzzle piece adding something to a bigger picture).
I do believe in letting candidates self-identify as a minority by race, gender, religion, etc, and I believe in auditing departments to determine if the acceptance or exclusion of some self-identified group seems well beyond statistical chance, but that is to help ensure the hiring committee is NOT using minority status or group-identity in their decisions to hire.
WaPo published an interesting op ed a couple of weeks back, on the danger of letting others determine someone’s ethnicity:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/elizabeth-warren-says-shes-native-american-so-she-is/2012/05/04/gIQAn31z1T_story.html
It’s worth a read.
She is going down, what a fruit loop.
It seems to me that there are several interesting and maybe important subjects in this. Individuals who what to know what is going on will try to separate and consider each. Those with an agenda try to get them all mixed up.
(1) Are political operative trying to make political hay out of Warren’s real or supposed affiliations? Definitely.
(2) Has Warren likely contributed to her own discomfort by not getting out in front and by making some really unfortunate (and funny) remarks. Definitely.
(3) Has Warren, even if she made every claim, done anything worse than many, many others. Probably not.
(4) But, can anyone be satisfied with the current methods of allocating and tracking ethnic affiliation? In particular, tribal affiliation seems really disturbing. Even if you are comfortable with the way tribal membership is granted, how can anyone be comfortable with ability to withdraw tribal membership on the basis of a vote? Ethnic affiliation is complicated. The way we deal with it now ought to trouble everyone.
(5) Finally, what implications does this have for Warren the candidate? Maybe not very much.
(6) BTW Last night 051412, on Maddow, Warren did a pretty credible job of explaining why JP Morgan financial fiasco is important to all of US (not just shareholders and depositors), and why financial regulation is a reasonable alternative to protect the rest of us, and why financial regulation of ‘too big to fail banks’ is probably not going to happen. Of course, Warren only had about 5 minutes and this is a subject that requires many reams to document and days, not hours, to discuss.
I think the all of these questions are coming from the Brown campaign and Karl Rove. There are typical Rovian tactics, and I have no doubt this was put out there by a desperate campaign.
It makes me sick.
This is nonsense put forth for want of any substantive issues. Bettykaths comment puts this nonsense into sharp perspective.
Application for a marriage license versus marriage license: small potatoes.
I’d rather have a political figure that claims to be an Indian than one that scalps people.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/higher-education/dem-us-senate-hopeful-in-mass-didnt-claim-minority-status-on-law-school-file-application/2012/05/10/gIQAHaPkGU_story.html
Rachel Maddow did a bit on this pointing out that newly elected head of the Cherokees is a man who is 1/32 Cherokee. Now if he can claim status why not Elizabeth Warren? If I were 1/32 Cherokee or any other Native American tribe, I’d be proud of it and claim it.
I figure the femanazi will let this pass without question. I think because she is from Willard’s home State it is better that he be beaten upon because it is his fault after all.
That’s the big deal–that the information about her Cherokee heritage was found on the application for a marriage license and not the license itself? Talk about a tempest in a teapot!
I don’t have to wonder what Brown and the Karl Rove machine will make of this tidbit of information.
*****
Frankly,
I live in Massachusetts. I’ve kept close tabs on the attempts by the Karl Rove machine, Brown’s campaign, and the GOP to smear Warren. They–and the wizards of Wall Street–would like to do her in before the primaries so pretty boy Brown doesn’t have to face her in the November elections.
P.S. There is no proof she used minority status to get any of her jobs.
Hell Ward Churchill claimed to be Native American when there was NO proof whatsoever of that. He later acknowledged that he was not, but was hired as a minority despite not having a PhD which is the normal requirement for a professor at CU. The university stated that they accept any claim as to being a minority since the proof is self identification.
I sure wish I had known that when I was applying to various airlines for employment since it would have helped me out a lot. I could have claimed Hispanic and/or Native American status and gotten hired at United rather quickly.
I thought I had read recently that her application paper work showed she had not claimed any minority status herself. I admit I have not paid any attention to the controversy because I just don’t care about it but if how she was listed by the University was not due to her claim how did it come to be?