The academic world is facing another professor accused of misrepresenting her ethnic background. Andrea Smith, an associate professor at the University of California Riverside has written extensively on Native American subjects and long claimed Cherokee heritage. However, critics have said that Smith is no Cherokee — a scandal reminiscent of Elizabeth Warren scandal after her lifetime claim of being a Native American were debunked. Likewise a former University of Colorado professor and radical “Native American” writer Ward Churchill was found to have phony claims of being Native American. The question is what is the proper response of a school if an academic long claimed such a status, which comes with obvious benefits from schools seeking to diversify their faculties. On one hand, there can be a question of academic honestly while on the other academics can claim that they were acting in good faith on the basis of family accounts or misguided assumptions.
David Cornsilk, a Cherokee genealogist found no evidence of Cherokee bloodlines for Smith and added “Wannabes like Andrea use the myths of Cherokees hiding in the hills, passing for white or being saved by righteous whites, to perpetuate their lies.”
Cornsilk has said that Smith came to him repeatedly to establish Cherokee roots and that each time he told her that no such links existed. Critics say that Smith continued to represent herself as a Native American woman and a minority. Media reports state that various people confronted Smith about her claims to be a Cherokee in the past at academic conferences and appearances and claim that she promised to stop doing so.
Smith has not responded directly to reporters and it is not clear how much of the research on her background is being contested. She issued a somewhat encryptic statement that “I have consistently identified myself based on what I knew to be true” and that her belief was based on “what I knew to be true.” In a statement that drew comparisons to Rachel Dolezal, she added that she “will always be Cherokee.”
She also stated in a blog posting that “I have consistently identified myself based on what I knew to be true. My enrollment status does not impact my Cherokee identity or my continued commitment to organizing justice for Native communities.” It is not clear if Smith is still claiming to be an actual Cherokee and failed to show up on listings to some “enrollment” issue.
Smith received her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz in 2002 and her J.D. at UC Irvine School of Law in 2013. According to her faculty bio, she is the author of Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances and Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. She is also the editor of The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Nonprofit Industrial Complex, and co-editor of The Color of Violence, The Incite! Anthology; Theorizing Native Studies,and Native Studies Keywords.
She is clearly identified as a Cherokee in this videotape:
The University has indicated that it will take no action on the allegation and that Smith remains a faculty member in good standing with the university. It further stated that ethnicity was not considered during her hiring. That later statement remains one of the most difficult issues for academics like Warren who listed herself as a minority for reporting purposes.
Source: Inside Higher Education
randyjet:
“Karen, It is obvious that you have one standard for GOPers, and one for all others.”
Actually, no, that is the exact opposite of what I have actually said. Specifically, on the other thread, I remarked that the law should apply equally to everyone, regardless of politics. I said I had no problem with D’Souza’s conviction and mea culpa. I had a problem with his sentence being far greater (including that mandated psychological counseling) that those who did the exact same thing to benefit Hillary Clinton.
“As for the perjury Jeb Bush committed on his voter registration form, it is obvious that though this was a slight perjury in consequences. using the Clinton precedent Bush should be prohibited from running for President.” Why? Jeb Bush did not lie under oath before Congress nor did he perjury himself. He accidentally checked the wrong box on a voter ID form, which he laughed off. He did not benefit in any way from the mistake. Clinton didn’t do a “slight perjury”. He deliberately and repeatedly lied under oath. Of course, I thought it was ridiculous that we were asking him about his affairs in the first place. I would have been more interested to question him under oath about the allegations of rape and sexual harassment.
Karen, You obviously have not read any CV of Warren since you would know that she is an outstanding legal scholar when she got the post at Harvard, thus your contention that she used her ethnic status to get the job is smply an outright lie. Then your contention that Clinton testified before Congress is simply delusional since that never happened. So far you have shown you are living in a fantasy world, You also forget that Clinton was found not guilty, and none of the articles even got a majority of the Senate. So even in a criminal trial he would not have been convicted. But I guess that such little things like truth and law mean nothing.
As for Bush lying on his voter registration form, that is a black and white form which he falsified. It was not a seperate form or one that said perjury does not attend that part of the form. He has not been prosecuted for it and it is so slight, I doubt he will be.The point is that such data is needed because people like Bush are activly denying Americans of color their rights to vote by various means. In FACT, the FL legislature was found to be violating the Constitution by illegally gerrymandering Congressionall districts to favor the GOP. When we have equality in the US under the law, THEN such things as this will be a moot point. Of course I am sure that you think we are a colorblind country now, and that Americans of color have no problems of discrimination.
randyjet – I have made mistakes ticking the right box. It can happen for all number of reasons. One is just wearing bi-focals. The box seems to move when you move your head.
The only ones voting for Clinton on his trial were Democrats who went out and took a selfie with him. That is the kind of jury you want.
Why has it become popular to question peoples ethnicity?
Because it has become popular to identify as a certain ethnicity. Obviously.
Harvard needed to fill a quota. Warren’s “family history” met that need.
Win win! Yay.
Except the intended beneficiary of affirmative action, e.g., an ACTUAL Indian, loses, so everyone lies about it afterward.
As for the perjury Jeb Bush committed on his voter registration form, it is obvious that though this was a slight perjury in consequences. using the Clinton precedent Bush should be prohibited from running for President. Or is a Bush perjury OK, but a Clinton one bad. Warren did not sign any form, unlike BUSH, which had a penalty of perjury attached as all voter registration forms do. So Bush gets a walk on perjury, as does Justice Thomas who committed perjury TEN times. His excuse was not that he checked the wrong box,but that over half a million dollars going into his bank account from his wifes salary slipped his mind. Then when that one failed the smell test, he claimed the forms were too complex and he made a good faith effort to fill them out.! I guess your sense of smell and intellect are wanting if you can buy these excuses.
I read of one Delta pilot who was an F/O for them. On his medical form, he forgot to check the box about prior DUIs. When he was an Army pilot he had gotten one DUI ten years before. The FAA checked records and found the DUI. He lost his license, medical, job, AND went to PRISON for perjury.I guess he must have been found out as a Democrat. It is damned hard to check the wrong box on the voter registration form unless one is drunk or spastic neither one of which I think Bush was.
Inga will be along soon to employ some other favorite devices: Tu Quoque and Squirrel!
Quick CogDis refresher:
2+2 =5
Repeat until compliant.
Although Facebook has 57 genders -no- 58 (today) by which you can self-identify, the Progressive Grand Inquisitor has instructed that self-identifying by race has some unforeseen problems, so a final decision on whether this is (a) the next Most Important Civil Rights Issue Of Our Time, or is (b) to be Uncomfortably Ignored As If Not Happening At All.
Since the impact on Opportunities for Graft might be significant, a decision that allows self-identified Gender but disallows self-identified Race seems wise.
However, this would be seemingly contradictory, so Grade Four Cognitive Dissonance Cloaking may be required for complete compliance.
If a refresher is needed, the Leftist Cognitive Dissonance Cloaking training modules can be accessed at our website. This should be unlikely however, given the frequency this device is already employed.
And Hillary Clinton should have gone to jail many times over, but she’s Teflon.
I also like some of Martha Stewart’s craft ideas. She went to jail, too.
randyjet:
“Warren taught financial law, and to my knowledge there are no major Indian tribes that have banks that are significant in those circles. The fact of her being female would have been of far greater consequence. I have to laugh at your reference to D’Souza being a source of ANY kind since he is a convicted FELON and cheat GREATER than Churchill! Sort of like Hitler complaining about how US segregationists treated US blacks.”
How do you know that Warren’s being female was weighed greater than her “ancestry?” She was written up in the paper as the fist female minority to have achieved tenure. Is it unbelievable that a university would preferentially hire a female minority over just a female, regardless of what they will admit.
I like that movie by D’Souza. He admitted to having used straw donors to donate $20,000 to a friend. It was wrong. He served his time. In fact, he served a far greater sentence than others convicted of far greater campaign finance law fraud. (Please see my comment on another thread.) That does not affect his interview with Ward Churchill, in which Churchill called the 9/11 victims “Little Eichmen” worse than Nazis. If you want to know what level of hatred is taught to students in college, watch that interview. It’s really sick.
randyjet:
“I also learned too late, that self identification is the ONLY test that is used on employment forms. That would have helped me immensly in getting a job with a major airline had I claimed to be Hispanic or black. Too late we get smart.”
And that’s why Affirmative Action related policies must end, to restore the meritocracy, which is the only fair method.
Karen S
As usual, great comments. Unfortunately, I have a feeling that the most cogent of explanations will still be ignored by some on this thread.
randyjet:
“I think it of FAR greater significance that Jeb Bush while a state official lied on his LEGAL documents that he is Hispanic, his voter registration!” Why? He admitted he just checked the wrong box. He’s a public figure, and has never claimed he was Hispanic.
So you think it is beyond the pale to think a university would have preferentially hired a woman who claimed she was Native American, and in fact they wrote her up in the paper as the first minority woman to attain tenure, but you think it was worse that Bush checked the wrong box on a voter registration card? What does he gain by the wrong voter ID box, vs what could Warren have gained by lying to her employer?
I see nothing Bush could have possibly gained if he checked that box on purpose, rather than in error, as he claimed. How could he have “gained political points?” Is it common knowledge what people mark down on their voter registration card? Because to gain political points he would have had to openly claim he was Hispanic. However, literally everyone knows who his parents are, and that he is Caucasian. Again, no scope for benefit compared with Warren, Churchill, Dolezal, Smith, et al.
JAG:
“Actually, people lie about being French all the time, as do they lie about being
English…. Just NOBODY gives a rats butt.”
That’s because there are no Affirmative Action policies preferentially hiring the French over other ethnicities. French is not an ethnicity. You can be ethnically Chinese and also French.
Once we take ethnicity out of the equation of hiring practices and college admissions, then pretending to be a minority can be dismissed as “quirky” or “harmless self identifying.”
There have been people overlooked for jobs or college entrance so that less qualified minorities get in, just to make the establishment more “diversified.” That is the source of betrayal as these lies become exposed.
This matters because when a university determines whom they should hire to teach a Native American class, they will obviously weight the application of an actual Native American.
These people lie about being minorities in order to get jobs from actual minorities, or to bolster their credibility. Elizabeth Warren has claimed, yet again, she is Native American in her 2014 book, “Fighting Chance.” She has claimed to be Native American for the past 25 years. Some may ask, so what?
In fact, Elizabeth Warren’s ancestor, Jonathan Crawford, was actually one of the soldiers who rounded up the Cherokees on the Trail of Tears.
She constantly rails against the 1%, although she is a millionaire herself. (This is very common among politicians, although they usually get rich off of taxpayer money.) Her salary is a cool half a million dollars a year. But she “didn’t build that.” She has consistently claimed to be a Native American for all of her employers. Harvard University billed her as a “person of color” on its staff. She was in the paper for being the first woman minority to achieve tenure. She lied that she told her employers she was a Native American after she was hired, when in fact she made a point to tell them before. By consistently claiming to be a minority at a time when employers in academia were courting minorities to employ took unfair advantage of the system
This is exactly why race should have absolutely zero to do with hiring practices or college entrance. It should be merit based. Period. Then none of this would ever happen.
Here are some other trivia about people who pretended to be Native American:
Iron Eyes Cody, the crying Indian from the Keep America Beautiful ads from the 1970s. He was really Italian. In the 1920s he started dressing in buckskins and claimed to be an Indian.
Ward Churchill was fired from his university employer after it discovered he plagiarized and falsified his works, as well as took advantage of their Affirmative Action policies by lying about being Native American. He also claimed the race is nuanced defense.
Caucasian Ted Perry really wrote the speech, “How Can You Buy or Sell the Sky” misattributed to Chief Seattle.
Karen, It is obvious that you have one standard for GOPers, and one for all others. I suggest you do some research before you make dumb statements. Go read the bio for Warren on line. She was a tenured prof at U of Texas Law School, U of Penn law school, was an outstanding law prof in her field of law, BEFORE she got to Harvard. I now think that her claim of Indian blood may actually be true since I did not know she was born and raised in OK where the majority of people have some Indian blood or claim to. It is pretty small, but not out of the realm of possibility. So to claim that her ethnic background had any bearing on her hiring is delusional. Sort of like saying an outstanding athlete got their job because they are black, white, etc.
As for the so called atrocity of the Trail of Tears, I suggest you do as i did and read the BOOK The Trail of Tears and learn something about that time and period, and about the Cherokees I have neither the time nor the inclination to educate you on the many errors you make..
randyjet – Warren’s ancestry was traced and at NO time was anyone in her background an Indian.
JAG, I’ve been to the Taos Pueblo. There is a sad incongruity. Amongst the thousands year old structures is a new casino.
Ethnicity:
In theory, the six degrees of separation states that everyone and everything is six steps or less from any other person in the world. Who knows, maybe a few more steps and we are all related.
Lawyerly”
She’s a JD and she makes a statement like this; “I have consistently identified myself based on what I KNEW to be true.” She should have said “…BELIEVE to be true.”. Not too swift.
Fraud:
And Nick, if you are a fraud investigator, why don’t you write a book on the side about the frauds committed upon the American People by the US judicial system, or the fraudulent activities of the US government, now that would be an encyclopedia. Or maybe the Monsanto fraud, Geo-engineering fraud, Federal Reserve fraud, etc… Just a suggestion, I would probably buy the book.
And, disparaging Cubans is despicable, randyjet! Just utterly despicable!!
I did not disparage Cubans, just the WHITE Cuban exiles who were as racist and corrupt as their white Southern compatriots. Too bad some people cannot read English or have problems with comprehension. Shows lack of intellect or education. Notice how there are no black Cubans exiles who fled Cuba in the 50s and 60s?Of course if you were black Cubans at that time, you LOST your freedom in daily life since FL was still segregated at that time. You could not ever vote, eat at white restaurants, live in a white area, or get a decent education. The white Cubans had the same system in Cuba before Castro won.
LOL! The 10:43am comment by our 6’5″ 240lb. fly boy show Bush Derangement Syndrome is not limited to W. How can someone constantly use so many words yet say nothing?
Oxa,
Even with all the incontrovertible evidence in the world, it’s next to impossible to convince these people that their family legends are erroneous.
What PROOF do you have that their family stories are NOT true?
justagurl – there is a Native American group stalking Elizabeth Warren. They have done her genealogy and the closest she comes to being an Indian is an ancestor who fought them.
It’s very simple: a liar is a liar. Why do people lie? What weird thing causes this? Trust them if you wish…I’d rarther not. If they lie about one thing, they wil about others. I don’t need to exoctic heritiage to be a certified A-Hole 🙂 Several “authorities” have assured me of my A-Hole linegage. I can’t disagree with most of them. 😀