This morning three different law professors sent me this video of U.S. Senate Candidate and Harvard Law Professor Elizabeth Warren claiming to be the first nursing mother to ever take the bar exam. One of the professors, who is a liberal academic, noted that she knows that claim to be untrue from personal experience. However, as noted by Winnie Comfort of the New Jersey Judiciary (which administers state’s bar exam), the bar does not track nursing habits and women have been taking the New Jersey bar exam since 1895. This was not a claim to be a nursing Cherokee mother, but the question remains why Warren is making such controversial boasts when she has a great financial expertise record to run on. Worse still, Warren today admitted that she did in fact claim minority status at Penn and Harvard — after insisting that she was unaware of the claims.
Obviously, the running of a law professor has made the Warren race a focus of law professors around the country. With these issues becoming part of the campaign, that fascination has grown to unprecedented levels. Warren has enjoyed overwhelming support in the academy from what I have seen. That support remains strong, though law professors are still chattering about these controversies.
These distractions however cannot be simply blamed on conservative publications, which are running the stories. Warren does not need such claims to distinguish herself. It could not come at a worse time when she has been unable to support her claim to be Cherokee In one of the most bizarre twists on the story, there are now accounts that great-great-great grandfather may have been a member of the Tennessee Militia who rounded up Cherokees and pushed them into the horrific Trail of Tears. Of course, even if true, that would not alter the fact that his wife was a Cherokee. However, the Boston Globe has confirmed that there is no documentation to support the claim.
With today’s admission that she did in fact repeatedly claim minority status at both law schools, I am again left perplexed why she would take so long to admit her claim. As I noted earlier, I could not imagine any way that such a claim, let alone repeated claims, unless it was made by the law professor.
On the merits, there is significant doubt about the claim. Warren’s bio lists her as becoming pregnant in 1976 before graduating from law school. By that point, the chances that she was the first woman to be a nursing mother during the bar seems doubtful, but more importantly it is not clear how she would know.
Once again, this is not an issue of importance, but it is one that Warren raised. While the claim of being a minority does have significant aspects for law schools and academics, nursing is not a matter that seems particularly relevant. However, what is fascinating is that I would have been impressed with Warren noting that she nursed during the bar exam – reflecting the challenges of female lawyers. No need to be first. I was trying not to hyperventilate at the time. I would be impressed even if she was the latest in a long line of nursing mothers during bar exams.
Nevertheless, she still looks good in comparison to 13 Senatorial candidates who are now accused of having backgrounds that include criminal convictions or tax violations.
I wonder if any of our attorneys have accounts to share of challenges that they faced during the bar examination. I know of one professor who was caught in a broken elevator in a hotel during his break from the bar. I know of another lawyer who was under cancer treatment and had to leave to throw up from the medication (he passed).
Rachel Maddow Calls Scott Brown A Liar
VIDEO
by Colby Hall
3/30/2010
http://www.mediaite.com/online/rachel-maddow-calls-sen-scott-brown-a-liar/
The rhetorical back and forth between MSNBC host Rachel Maddow and newly elected Senator Scott Brown is equal parts painfully absurd and delightfully entertaining. To recap quickly: Brown’s campaign has been raising funds over a farcical threat of the television host entering a Senatorial campaign against him. Maddow has laughed off the allegations, in hopes that they would abate, which they haven’t. So, long story short – tonight she took the next logical step. She called a sitting US Senator a liar. And as long as she doesn’t run for office, she’s right.
I spent four years active duty in the Navy, but I don’t get any preference points. Not complaining.
Non-issue and the original issue is just plain racist. The basis from which that anti-Warren argument proceeds is that being 1/16th or 1/32 Native American allows you to jump the line of more qualified candidates. In the real world and it doesn’t. That minorities get a free ride over better qualified ASP’s. The only thing it get is that it allows the employer to check off a box on a government form that demonstrates they are an equal opportunity employer or are moving toward their voluntarily set hiring goals.
I’m 1/16th Cherokee and sometimes I’d check the appropriate box on the yearly EO form my employer (the govt.) handed out and sometime I wouldn’t, it depended on how I felt that day. The forms were a farce and employees played with filing them out to the point that the data base was in some part unreliable and had to be visually corroborated by personnel folks, LOL.
To think that someone has to deal with a basically racist controversy over such a minuscule thing decades later is just reason #261 civilized people in the rest of the world are (I’m sure) laughing at the U.S.
What does “is” mean? She’s telling the truth.
Liz Warren Sets Herself Up for a Summer of Crazy
By Charles P. Pierce
May 31, 2012
http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-9312870
This morning, because it was slow to realize the real political damage that nonsense can do to a person, Elizabeth Warren’s senatorial campaign got itself in real trouble.
Let us be clear from the outset: There was no answer that she ever could have given on the subject of her alleged Cherokee ancestry that would have “put the issue to bed.” Reporters who make that argument do so because they have to justify their pursuit of the nothingburger in the first place. We all recall the many words wasted on behalf of the fanciful notion that if Bill Clinton had just “come clean” on Monica Lewinsky from the start, the story would have “gone away,” as though the Republicans and their media enablers weren’t in the game of getting rid of Clinton for keeps since, roughly, 1989, when the late ratfker Lee Atwater first went to Little Rock to troll for Clinton’s former lovers. Had Warren responded from the start that, Hey, that’s what my mom always told me, which seems to be the default option of which the people pursuing this story seem to believe she should have availed herself, the following day’s story would have been Liz Throws Mom Under Bus, which would have led to the third-day story, A Question Of Character, and on and on we go.
(For a longer analysis of the precise Warren-Clinton media parallels, see friend of the blog Mountaineer Mike Tomasky.)
The problem for Warren is that her campaign apparently was either unaware of this dynamic, or believed out of a profound sense of naivete that the “scandal” would sink of its own weight, that the Boston Globe, which has been running scared of offending Scott Brown ever since McDreamy got elected, never would dream of following the lead of the Boston Herald, which now, in a hilarious exercise in sheer public mendacity, has taken up the cause of Warren’s opponent in the Democratic primary, Marisa DeFranco, as though she’d actually be anything but a “moonbat” in that paper if she wasn’t running against Warren and if the Herald weren’t so thoroughly in the tank for McDreamy that they might not dry off until 2019. But the two newspapers are joined in a kind of symmetry that gives this story its legs — the Herald’s shamelessly in the tank for Brown while the Globe is utterly terrified of being accused of being in the tank for Warren. And today, in the latter, Warren’s story changed a little, which is never a good thing:
Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren acknowledged for the first time late Wednesday night that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that she was Native American, but she continued to insist that race played no role in her recruitment. “At some point after I was hired by them, I… provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,” she said in a statement issued by her campaign. “My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.”
You don’t have to have been following American politics too closely over the past 20 years to start dreaming up the attack ads scattered like land mines throughout that paragraph. What Else Don’t We Know? What Else Has She Changed Her Mind About? It’s not like the sub rosa poison about Warren’s being an “affirmative action hire” is going to go away now, either. The polls still say nobody cares about this foolishness, and the election is still going to be a razorish thing all the way to the fall. But, now that Warren’s explanation has moved from Point A to Point A.005, expect things to get both rougher and more loony through the summer.
UPDATE — Here’s the text of an e-mail the Warren campaign sent out this afternoon.
When I was a little girl, I learned about my family’s heritage the same way everyone else does — from my parents and grandparents. My mother, grandmother, and aunts were open about my family’s Native American heritage, and I never had any reason to doubt them. What kid asks their grandparents for legal documentation to go along with their family stories? What kid asks their mother for proof in how she describes herself? My heritage is a part of who I am — and I am proud of it.
But that’s not good enough for Scott Brown and the Republican Party. For several weeks now, they have orchestrated an attack against my family, my job qualifications, and my character. Earlier today, Scott Brown even questioned the honesty of my parents — even though they are not fair game and are not here to defend themselves.
Scott Brown wants me to give up my family and forget where I came from. I’m not doing that — not for politics and not for anything else. I’ll hold on to every memory I can. My family is part of who I am, and they will be part of who I am until I die.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Scott Brown also claims I got special breaks because of my background. That’s not true, and I need your help to fight back:
* The people involved in recruiting and hiring me for my teaching jobs, including Harvard professor Charles Fried — the solicitor-general under Ronald Reagan and a Scott Brown voter in 2010 — have said unequivocally they were not aware of my heritage and that it played no role in my hiring.
* I did not benefit from my heritage when applying to college or law school, and documents reporters have examined prove it.
* I let people know about my Native American heritage in a national directory of law school personnel. At some point after they hired me, I also provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.
I decided to run for the U.S. Senate because the middle class in this country has been hacked at and hammered at and because Washington doesn’t get it. Scott Brown has a very different vision about who we are as a people, and he votes to make sure the levers of power in Washington continue to work for the big, the powerful and the wealthy. If everyone in Massachusetts knew where Scott Brown stands on the important issues, voters wouldn’t give him a second term in the U.S. Senate. You know that, I know that, and he knows that, too. That’s why he has worked so hard to make this campaign about anything else — even my heritage. It’s why his campaign spends so little time on what Massachusetts voters are really concerned about. On Election Day, we will prevail because our vision is clearer and our ideas are stronger. We are focused on the issues important to middle class families, and our grassroots team will make sure everyone knows about those issues. I need your help to keep fighting the smears, spread the truth, and help us organize to win.
Better, but would’ve been more effective two weeks ago.
Elaine,
All American boy!
Swarthmore mom & Blouise,
Scott “Centerfold” Brown also signed Grover Norquist’s anti-tax pledge
rafflaw,
I knew yours was a rhetorical question. I decided to answer it anyway.
Elaine,
I was asking a rhetorical question. I know the media is following the corporate lead and the lead of the Rove’s of the world. It is just amazing how crap issues like this lead the news.
Swarthmore,
don’t you know it is mandatory for Republicans to be pro-torture and against free speech, unless it is for corporations? 🙂
v-boy,
Roll another one … you’re getting cranky.
anon, That was no concession. Brown ran his campaign in 2010 on a pro-torture and anti-civil liberties platform and is doing the same in 2012.
Flunked the NY bar. Hadn’t taken a review course. Came down with flu the day after that hat had me in bed for a week — the infamous 1968 swine flu epidemic.
Living in DC. Took legendary Nacrelli review course. Passed DC, but declined to walk across the street, literally, from District Court induction ceremony, to sign up for Supreme Court Bar at, I think, the bargain rate of $25 or thereabouts.
Looks like another trick in the trade.
@SwM, I accept your concession of the point. Next time, you may try a little more grace with your concession posts, (but I wouldn’t ask Blouise for an example.)
Looks like John gets off again, this time no pregnancy.
anon, I know all I need to know about Brown. If you want more information do your own research or just give him a pass.
Blouise, Abbe Lowell is among the best defense attorneys money can buy.
Hey, v-boy … long time no talk to.
SwM,
Edwards found not guilty on one count and judge declares mistrial on 5 others because jury could not reach a decision. They were out 9 days! What a bloomin’ fiasco for the prosecutors.