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?
Adrian,
The cow and the donkey are supposed to be Rocky calling Adrian. I guess you missed that.
Figure out how to use spell check and to write a coherent comment that isn’t off the wall.
BTW, heroin is a drug–not a person to be admired and looked up to.
@dagmar
Dustin Hoffman is not trying to call himself a minority so minoritties falls for the “she is one of us” trick
plus, Dustin Hoffman is an actor…are you sugesting Warren is an actor?…..you understand that the actor profession actually means “liar” make beleive you are one thing for the simple porpouse of entertaiment….
if thats what you mean, i agree…Warren is a liar….
oh soooo funny…im a cow AND a dunkey..a cowkey?
so, ad hominem all over….instead of answering why you and your heroin Warren and your hero Obama hide behind the “liberal” facade or even the simpler question i posted about Warren use of her “minority” card you start calling me names…..
well, after the 100s copy and paste comments you posted, which just supports OTHER people opinions and not any of yours except that you blindly will vote for Warren even if you find pictures of her molesting children, i should figure who were you….but i already called you a fake(again after you failed to answer my question), so we are even….
just keep up the copy and paste
Apparently you cannot call yourself a Native American unless you look like one of the Italian-American actors who played Native Americans in 1950s Western movies, wear Plains Indian feathered headgear, and carry a spear. Or you look like Dustin Hoffman did in Little Big Man. Sheesh, take off your blinders people! It’s the 21st Century. Get off the race-baiting merry-go-round.
Adrian,
Rocky’s been calling for you!
Actually, I wasn’t think of Hitler at all. Thinking more of right wing radio host…….. Mark Levin.
i dont care if Warren is a communist, what i care is for the pathological need to lie about it and hide in words like “center” or “left” or “liberal” or “democrat” and instead of answering simple questions like
(again)
why if Warren never used her “minority card” the boston “communist” globe was soo fast to find a 1/32 relation with a cherokee tribe?
you then accuse everyone of being a 1/32 part hitler relative(since hitler is what you have in your minds of what a far right wing person is)…
Africa is still ringing on my ears….
Elaine,
Left you a comment on the Mangoes Mother’s Day thread … very good!
First came “communist.” I knew “Nazi” would soon follow. Waiting in the wings and for its cue: “fascist.”
Elizabeth “Big Foot” Warner. This is a case for Louis Gates. We need her to be researched on television on the Finding Your Roots show or whatever its called. If she is a Cherokee then maybe Louis can find out if great grandma dropped off the trail of tears. If she is lying about the Cherokee Tribe then maybe she belongs in the D.A.R. That might get her some of the other guy’s voters. Maybe her grandad worked for Mayflower Trucking. She dont have the cheekbones to cut the moutard for being a Cherokee.
Sticks and stones …
really…WAPO? a “growing number”? St Luis federal reserve bank? OMG..thats all the facts everyone needs for this topic!!!!…follow your guts….not WAPO….
Elaine…if the pelt suits you…. i wonder whats your definition of communism…
im sure you can answer YES to this
–pro redistribution of wealth
–pro govement over free markets
maybe you just dont know…but i beleive now, you simply are a fake, just another of the wolfs….
@Sarthmore mom..you dont even know what far right is…Hitler? hmm…he was teh leader of the NAZI party(nacional-socialism)
as i said…we all came from Africa….
I guess it is a good spot. The communists call us capitalists and sell-outs, and the capitalists call us communists. lol
Left of center lol
are on the blog……oops
SwM and Elaine,
“Elaine, The far right fringe plus the far left fringe is on the blog…………”
Thank God I’m stuck somewhere in the middle with you two. 🙂
“SwM and Elaine,
“Elaine, The far right fringe plus the far left fringe is on the blog…………”
Thank God I’m stuck somewhere in the middle with you two. 🙂 ”
Blouise,
Can I join in?
“I am cuban…I AM A MINORITY in this country called latin; i beleive IT IS A MISTAKE, cause we do no speak latin in our countries of origin, we speak spanish and portuguese which derived from the latin for so is the french….but what i am, is really good at smelling communists(including those who will die denying it…25 years living under a communist regime do that to you) and your Warren is just one of them sheeps in a Wolf pelt.”
Adrian,
You are a minority as a Cuban and yes you did live under a communist regime. However, was Batista, the Mafia backed fascist any better than Castro? I doubt it. Now having lived in Cuba for twenty-five years are you really serious in telling me that the Democrats are communists? You may have lived under communism and felt the oppression, but if you compare Democrats to communists then you don’t understand what communism is, even having felt its’ terror.
The Democratic Party has never been communist historically and they are farther to the Right Wing now than they ever were. I’ve lived here for 67 years and I’ve actually known American Communists. They hated liberals, progressives and the Democratic Party. They hated them more than they hated the Republicans and I’ll tell you why.
Batista was a Fascist in action and practice. He treated Cubans so badly that they revolted with a popular front, of which the Castro’s were a part. Unfortunately, there were two problems with the revolution. The first was that the people who run foreign policy in the U.S. have always been supportive of American Industry ripping off the peoples of the America’s, south of the borders. Batista allowed them to in Cuba. He also allowed the Mafia to run the
Hotels, Gambling and Prostitution. Those business interests and the Mafia put pressure on the Eisenhower Administration to put pressure on Cuba and try to destabilize the revolution. Castro, feeling threatened, went to the USSR for aid.
The second thing though was that Castro, while a Communist was also an egotist who wanted power. He betrayed the Democratic ideals of the Revolution and wiped out his enemies (who had been his allies), or let them flee to America. Then he imposed his version of communism on Cuba.
Now with that background let me tell you why the “real” communists hate liberals, progressives and the Democratic Party. That part of the Left actually tries, not very successfully so far, to make the condition of the average people better. Communists want the lives of average people to get so bad that they will revolt as in Cuba, Russia and China. The communists believe that they can
seize power during a popular revolution, just as they did in Cuba, Russia and China, so they want most people to be suffering miserably. Curiously, in America, the Republican Party, fundamentalists and right wing conservatives want the same thing as communists, but for different reasons.
Elaine, The far right fringe plus the far left fringe is on the blog…………
bigfatmike,
You must be a communist too!
@Adrian “rather becasue your communists friends leaded by Barney Frank decided the goverment has to OWN a bank give a shoot to those McDonnald workers to buy 300 thousand dollard suburband houses WITHOUT downpayment? ”
Suzy Khimm writing 032912 in the WAPO reports
“It’s one of the biggest misconceptions about the housing crisis: the belief that the government’s policies to promote affordable housing — particularly through Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac — fanned the flames of the subprime mortgage market, ultimately bringing down the entire economy.
In fact, a growing body of independent research confirms that it wasn’t the affordable housing mandate that led to the proliferation of risky mortgages. And the most recent evidence comes from the St. Louis Federal Reserve Bank. ”
You can accept the summary statements that it wasn’t Barney Frank that single handedly caused the financial meltdown or you can wade through the FED and academic studies that demonstrate this fact.
If you want reference to some of the studies it will take me a bit longer to dig them out.