In Washington, it is often the response of politicians to allegations that get them into more trouble than the original allegations themselves. Harvard Professor and US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren appears to be reaffirming that rule as more information surfaced that casts serious questions about her veracity over the claim to being a Native American. The latest disclosure comes from the Boston Globe, a Democratic-leaning newspaper that has been criticized for downplaying the controversy in the past. I previously discussed how claiming to be a minority is a significant act for law professors due to reporting to the federal government, the ABA, and AALS. Warren has insisted that she was unaware that she was listed as a minority, but, as a law professor, I am skeptical how such listings can occur without a professor volunteering the information. Now, the Boston Globe is reporting that Harvard listed Warren for years as a minority in reports to the federal government. Obviously, this story has particular interest to law professors, but it is being played out in the Massachusetts senatorial race.
I do not share the view that anyone should be able to claim to be a minority, particularly when reporting responsibilities to the government and the ABA hold great importance for schools and academics. Warren is not a minority. She also does not meet that federal definition of a Native American.
Warren’s denial of knowledge of being viewed as a minority and a Cherokee has faced repeatedly contradiction including the recent disclosure by the New York Times of being claimed as a minority faculty member at her earlier law school, the University of Pennsylvania. There have also been smaller disclosures like her contributions to the “Pow Wow Cook Book” as a Cherokee woman.
The Globe reports on Warren’s pasts denial but reveals “for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school.” The school notes, as we previously discussed, such statistics are based on the reporting of the professors themselves as minorities. The newspaper states the new information “further questions about Warren’s statements that she was unaware Harvard was promoting her as Native American.”
Warren is refusing to respond to the new information and her campaign insists that she has already answered enough questions.
Alan Ray, a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was the official responsible during this period for reporting at Harvard. He is now president of Elmhurst College in Illinois and says that he did not list Warren unilaterally and never encouraged an professor to report themselves as a minority.
Warren was repeatedly identified as a minority Native American in various publications for the Harvard Crimson. As previously discussed, she was called Harvard Law’s “first woman of color” in a 1997 Fordham Law Review and in 1998, Harvard published a letter to the New York Times heralding the presence of a “Native American” on the faculty. Then again in 1998, the Crimson followed up on the New York Times publication and wrote “Harvard Law School currently has only one tenured minority woman, Gottlieb Professor of Law Elizabeth Warren, who is Native American.”
I have previously said how much I respect Warren as an academic and her intellect would be clearly be an asset in the U.S. Senate. However, I remained concerned over the denials of knowledge and the years of claims to be a minority. Whether such claims assisted her career or not, the reporting of minority hiring affects myriad of different issues and rankings. To count a minority member on a faculty, reduces pressure on the school to further diversify its ranks and elevates the status of the professor. Under any reasonable definition, Warren is not a minority and there is no documentation establishing that she is even 1/32 Cherokee. Even if she were 1/32 Cherokee, would we feel it was fine for someone to claim they are black or hispanic with 1/32 connection to that minority or asian? If so, law schools could claim a multifold increase in minorities. Clearly, we cannot have reporting data if anyone is given carte blanche in self-proclaiming themselves to be minorities.
While I do not question her pride in the family claim to have Indian blood (though tens of millions have such potential claims of a small presence of Indian blood in their families), there is a big difference between such pride and claiming to be a minority or Native American. I tend not to view these stories in partisan terms. Frankly, I am a critic of both parties. I believe that story does raise legitimate questions, particularly regarding the denials of knowledge. While I do not believe that this is the most important question in the campaign, I do believe it warrants further answers from Warren.
What do you think? Do you believe Warren should respond to these latest allegations in the Boston Globe and New York Times or is this completely irrelevant to judging Warren’s character and veracity?
Source: Boston Globe
Brooklin Bridge 1, May 26, 2012 at 8:38 am
For someone who is so opposed to Obama and the bankers and Summers and Geithner, and the rest of them, I have heard little comment about it from Warren during her campaign. Where are the speeches or the outrage giving Obama hell for doing nothing at all to protect the millions of families being illegally foreclosed upon?
Politicians are ruthlessly maligned all the time and nevertheless manage to get out their message.
———————————————–
Edwards doesn’t work that way. She tends to define the problem and look for solutions, not attack the personality. Look what she did to Geitner in the video above. She stayed on point and didn’t let him off the hook. She didn’t attack him. She just asked very good questions. She most likely knew the answers but needed him to say it. Geitner was probably one of those lobbying the hardest to keep her from getting the top job in the agency she created.
If elected, she will continue to have powerful enemies. Cynthia McKinney found out how hard it is to speak truth to power. She was ousted from Congress twice for thinking independently of the leadership. She was subjected to humiliation while in Congress; a Republican running against her as a Democrat; jerrymandering of her district. She’s running again, independent of the two-headed party.
Our country is falling apart around us. Our Constitution has been shredded and we are involved in bullshit.
Elaine,
The Woman Who Knew Too Much
Millions of Americans hoped President Obama would nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the consumer financial watchdog agency she had created. Instead, she was pushed aside. As Warren kicks off her run for Scott Brown’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, Suzanna Andrews charts the Harvard professor’s emergence as a champion of the beleaguered middle class, and her fight against a powerful alliance of bankers, lobbyists, and politicians.
By Suzanna Andrews
November 2011
===========================================================
I’m not a woman. But I think there’s a point here. Refuse to cook the books to satisfy other people’s appetites, and see what happens. If you’re male, it might be a little bit more difficult.
Brooklin Bridge,
Your covering the same territory as above over again. Max Blumenthal, for one, thinks that we may be making the same error with Warren that we did with Obama and he simply argues that now is a good time to find out. If Warren’s own web site does not raise questions for you, fine. I hope you are right.
=========================================================
I haven’t looked at Warren’s web site. I really don’t care.
bigfatmike,
I’m not so sure that Warren is going to be elected. Karl Rove and company will do their best to see that she isn’t. In addition, Brown has a fairly high approval rating in Massachusetts. I think many people believe him to be more moderate than he really is.
Scott Brown Votes To Double Student Loan Interest Rates
MAY 24 2012
Brown Votes To Make 161,102 Bay Staters Pay About $1,000 More In Interest While Supporting Huge Tax Breaks For Millionaires & Big Oil Companies
http://www.dscc.org/news?type=press_release&press_release_KEY=2162
Excerpt:
In a Senate vote today, Scott Brown voted against a measure to prevent student loan interest rates from doubling in July. Brown’s vote today will force 161,102 Bay State students to pay an average of $1,000 more next year in interest for student loans, putting an extra burden on the budgets of millions of middle-class families across the country. While Brown voted today to double interest rates for Bay Staters trying to obtain an education, Brown has voted time and again for extreme Republican budget priorities that preserve huge tax breaks for Big Oil companies and millionaires.
“Once again, Scott Brown voted with his party leaders to double student loan interest rates for millions of Americans, a move that would impact tens of thousands of Massachusetts families,” said Matt Canter, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “Instead of protecting initiatives that help middle-class families like student loans and Medicare, Scott Brown has consistently voted for politically motivated budget priorities that force deep cuts in Medicare and education while preserving tax breaks for Big Oil companies and the wealthiest Americans. Middle-class families in Massachusetts deserve leaders who will defend their interests, not Washington politicians like Scott Brown who are willing to slash Medicare and student aid to protect tax breaks for Big Oil companies and millionaires.”
For someone who is so opposed to Obama and the bankers and Summers and Geithner, and the rest of them, I have heard little comment about it from Warren during her campaign. Where are the speeches or the outrage giving Obama hell for doing nothing at all to protect the millions of families being illegally foreclosed upon?
Politicians are ruthlessly maligned all the time and nevertheless manage to get out their message.
The Woman Who Knew Too Much
Millions of Americans hoped President Obama would nominate Elizabeth Warren to head the consumer financial watchdog agency she had created. Instead, she was pushed aside. As Warren kicks off her run for Scott Brown’s Senate seat in Massachusetts, Suzanna Andrews charts the Harvard professor’s emergence as a champion of the beleaguered middle class, and her fight against a powerful alliance of bankers, lobbyists, and politicians.
By Suzanna Andrews
November 2011
http://www.vanityfair.com/politics/features/2011/11/elizabeth-warren-201111
Excerpt:
On the afternoon of July 18, in remarks from the Rose Garden amid the bruising showdown with congressional Republicans over the debt ceiling, President Obama made what the White House billed as a simple “personnel announcement.” In a brief speech, the president announced that he was nominating Richard Cordray, the former attorney general of Ohio, to head the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the new government agency set up to protect consumers from abusive lending practices. In his remarks he described the agency, part of the massive 2010 Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, as creating “the strongest consumer protections in history,” set up “so ordinary people were dealt with fairly.” After which he turned to thank the woman standing to his right, Elizabeth Warren.
A Harvard law professor, one of the nation’s leading bankruptcy experts and consumer advocates, the 62-year-old Warren had come up with the idea for the agency in 2007. She had advised the Obama administration on its creation in the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse and helped to push it through Congress. Warren had also spent the last 10 months working tirelessly to build the agency from scratch—hiring its staff of 500, including Richard Cordray, organizing its management structure, and getting the C.F.P.B. up and running for its opening on July 21.
As she crisscrossed the country, spreading the word about the C.F.P.B., Warren became a familiar face to many, especially to those who had seen her on television—on CNBC, Real Time with Bill Maher, and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. She had gained millions of supporters. With her passionate defense of America’s beleaguered middle class, under assault today from seemingly every direction, she had become like a modern-day Mr. Smith, giving voice to regular citizens astonished at the failure of Washington to protect Main Street—and what increasingly appeared to be its abandonment of middle-class America. By July, the A.F.L.-C.I.O.—speaking for its 12 million members—had called on Obama to name Warren to head the agency. So had scores of consumer groups. Eighty-nine Democrats in the House of Representatives had signed a letter, publicly urging him to choose Warren. Newspapers around the country editorialized on her behalf, as did hundreds of bloggers. By July 18, when Obama announced that he was passing Warren over, he did so after receiving petitions signed by several hundred thousand people and organizations urging him to appoint Warren as the country’s top consumer watchdog.
At the end of his remarks, Obama turned to Warren and kissed her on the cheek. She smiled gamely, though if there are kisses a woman can do without, this was one of them. A Judas kiss, some would say. But if so, the betrayal was not just of Elizabeth Warren. In his remarks, Obama would hint at what had happened to Warren, commenting that she had faced “very tough opposition” and had taken “a fair amount of heat.” He also alluded to the powerful forces arrayed against her, and against the C.F.P.B.—“the army of lobbyists and lawyers right now working to water down the protections and reforms that we’ve passed,” the corporations that pumped “tens of millions of dollars” into the fight, and “[their] allies in Congress.” But he was mincing his words. The fight against Warren and the C.F.P.B. was one of the most brutal Washington battles this year, up there with the debt-ceiling showdown and now the looming battle over the jobs bill—but part of the same war. Arrayed against Warren, and today against the very existence of the C.F.P.B., was the full force of what many, most notably Simon Johnson, the M.I.T. professor and former International Monetary Fund chief economist, have called the American financial oligarchy: Wall Street firms and banks supported mainly by Republican members of Congress, but also politicians on the other side of the aisle, along with members of Obama’s own inner circle.
At a time of record corporate profits, a time when 14 million Americans are out of work, when millions have lost their homes and, according to the Census Bureau, the ranks of those living in poverty has grown to one in six—that Elizabeth Warren could be publicly kneecapped and an agency devoted to protecting American consumers could come under such intense attack is, ultimately, the story about who holds power in America today.
Matt Johnson, she would now be director of Consumer Financial Protection Bureau […] agreed.
Your covering the same territory as above over again. Max Blumenthal, for one, thinks that we may be making the same error with Warren that we did with Obama and he simply argues that now is a good time to find out. If Warren’s own web site does not raise questions for you, fine. I hope you are right.
There are many possible reasons she was not made director of the Consumer Finanacial Bureau. For one, as has been mentioned above, she would never have made it past the confirmation process and the last thing Obama wanted was a big fight. That alone is sufficient reason, and makes it pretty thin ice to assume some giant rift. If such a deep divide were the cause, it is highly unlikely the DNC would have allowed Warren the nomination in Massachusetts and Obama would have seen to it. Don’t imagine he lacks the power and look at what he does to whistle blowers.
It is far more likely that Obama paved the way for the senatorial run and that Warren is both grateful and loyal because of it. And none of that would contradict that she is indeed a fine individual and will indeed follow her principals, but it may nevertheless indicate that she will put her principals aside to varying degrees 1) As requested by Obama, and 2) Over time, as so many other politicians have done, by the sheer corrupting force of the Senate and it’s committee rules and lobbyists and their constant influence.
It is sort of poetic justice don’t you think.
They could have had her corralled as the director of a nearly toothless Consumer Financial Protection Bureau but they got stubborn.
Now they are going to have to deal with her as a full blown senator. Yeah, i know she will be a first year junior senator. But something tells me she won’t say friendless and without influence for long.
My guess is she will be changing the terms of debate pretty early on.
From director to senator. Some consultant political strategist will loose his head on that one.
bettykath 1, May 25, 2012 at 8:53 pm
in the video, watch Geitner’s eyes and face. He’s spewing b…s….
I hope Warren wins and get better information where foreign policy is concerned. With good information her integrity will get her to change her mind. We need her in the Senate because of her knowledge of the financial stuff. It’s an extremely rare commodity in Congress and is sorely needed.
=========================================================
Sarbanes-Oxley was a good idea, but it isn’t being properly enforced. Bush Jr. had to be dragged kicking and screaming to the table. Remember Enron?
Elaine,
Brooklin Bridge,
I don’t believe that Warren IS an “Obamabot.” If she were, she would now be director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. Obama cut her loose for a reason. Another thing: Geithner, Summers, Chris Dodd, too-big-to-fail banks don’t like her. In my book, that’s a point in her favor.
==========================================================
Agreed.
As to Fauxcahontas and Howie Carr, your point is that if a right wing thug uses it, that makes it OK for you to do the same?
I used to consider that argument 100% Republican, but lately, thanks to Obama and company, surprisingly including you, it has become absolutely bipartisan.
Got your knickers in a twist over something I said?
That’s fair enough, and though I’m falling all over the place, (damn knickers), I suppose I can handle it, especially since I was pretty sarcastic the other day.
But you were also shifting from substance to name calling, so it was a good time to go get some sleep.
anon,
I didn’t coin the term “Fauxcahontas.” Right-wing writer Howie Carr did. That’s what he called Elizabeth Warren in an article he wrote about her and her Cherokee heritage in The Boston Herald. You should write a letter to the editor at The Boston Herald complaining about Carr’s use of the racist term.
P.S. Not sure what alliteration you find in the word Fauxcahontas.
Hey everyone,
Though it has a certain alliteration to it, Fauxcahontas is a pretty ugly name and about as close to racist as I can imagine.
It hasn’t been used much in this thread, and I suggest we keep it that way.
Elaine,
Whoops! Trying to type too fast! Should have been “spot on”! Time for bed!
Land of the red man,
I think 1/256 is Great(6) Grandmother – 9 generations.
mother =1
daughter= 1/2
granddaughter = 1/4
great granddaughter = 1/8
great(2) granddaughter = 1/16
great (3) granddaughter = 1/32
great (4) granddaughter = 1/64
great (5) granddaughter = 1/128
great (6) granddaughter = 1/256
rafflaw
1, May 26, 2012 at 12:44 am
Elaine,
You are pot on.
I never touch the stuff!
😉
National Review’s Elizabeth Warren Plagiarism Claim Quickly Debunked
5/19/12
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/05/19/national-review-elizabeth-warren-plagiarism_n_1529144.html
Excerpt:
National Review writer Katrina Trinko ended up with egg on her face Friday evening after accusing Democratic senate candidate Elizabeth Warren of plagiarism — a charge that was quickly debunked.
Trinko published an item early Friday evening bearing the accusatory title, “Plagiarism In Elizabeth Warren’s 2006 Book.” The article, which appeared on the Review’s “Corner” blog, made the following claim about “All Your Worth,” a personal finance guide Warren published with her daughter:
[“All Your Worth”] includes a passage that appears to include parts of two paragraphs directly lifted from a book published in 2005, Getting on the Money Track by Rob Black.
Soon after Trinko’s piece went up, Salon’s Alex Pareene examined the evidence and came to this conclusion about Trinko’s allegations:
The passages line up perfectly. The wording and even the punctuation are identical. It’s plagiarism all right. Except it looks very much like Warren is actually the victim. [Emphasis Pareene’s]
In fact, while “All Your Worth’s” paperback version was released in 2006, the original hardcover edition first appeared in bookstores in March 2005. Black’s book was released sometime later that year. Trinko quickly issued a correction and apology — noting her confusion over the dates — and removed the original article from the Review’s website.
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/05/23/johnny-depp-adopted-into-new-mexicos-comanche-nation-for-native-american-portrayal-in-the-lone-ranger/
How many generations are needed before one is considered to be native rather than a hyphenated immigrant descendent?
My dad’s contribution to family lore is that we are related to a particular well-known politician of the1800s. Well, we are, but the joining point is the family that immigrated in 1634. He is descended from one son, we from a different son. He didn’t talk about his father, or his mother’s grandmother. My mother’s brother did some research about his father’s line. But what I’ve found is that really interesting stuff is in following the lines of the women!