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
“I used the incident to illustrate a CONTRAST as to what is TRULY important and worthy of outrage. ”
You are quite wrong here.
The real OUTRAGE is that anyone anywhere even THINKS Unfavorable Thoughts about gay marriage, which remains the Biggest Civil Rights Issue of Our Time Until the Next One.
Right now, some Christian *spit* is still AGAINST gay marriage even thought it’s now THE LAW!!!1!
Soldiers murdered by ISIS-in-America?
Don’t be such an Islamophobe, Inga.
The Chief Consort is on your side, Inga.
I am all about self-identifying as whatever you wish to be.
Currently I am a 41 year old Mexican cabdriver who is female on MON-WED-FRI and genderqueer on Saturday. Tuesday I am a transitioning male-to-female-to-vampire.
My Sunday now calls itself Monday, so I have that to deal with, but I am transitioning from Tinker-to-Evers-to-Chance on that day, whatever it wants to be called.
See? We’re all on the same team.
Group hug.
Ginny, jealous? Sorry you don’t have children that are accomplished.
Pogo, I try to give you some slack, but honestly you are quite the despicable character. So this story of this woman who embellished her ethnicity is SOOOOO important to you ( so that you get to bash some liberal professor again) that you would make a point to say I’m using the story of the five military members being killed as a “distraction” from this unfortunate woman? I used the incident to illustrate a CONTRAST as to what is TRULY important and worthy of outrage. That you don’t recognize this says something not very good about you.
Inga – you are trolling.
Living through ones children is sad.
Excellent distraction and shift-blaming techniques.
The Jet Li of blog post comment animadversion.
Kudos!
Pogo my comment was in direct response to your incredibly silly comment about cisgender Christians and multiculturalism, at 4:01 PM. YOU and JOHN both cannot seem to extricate yourselves from your narratives for one single second, even only hours after this terrorist attack. Shame on you both.
No, I haven’t John. But my daughter whom I love very much and would like to see her live to a ripe old age serves with the Navy and spent a full year in Afghanistan serving as a FMF Corpsman with the Marines. She was there during the attack on Camp Bastion in 2012 and was just yards away from where the Taliban cut through the perimeter fence. She’s served in the Navy since 2002. She happens to be stationed at a facility off base that has no guns on the premises and she is a sitting duck just like these five guys were. So I HAVE a damn good reason to be concerned about what happened today.
The Progressive Grand Inquisitor just noted She was pleased how quickly Inga was able to turn the subject from an Islamic terrorist to “heterosexual red blooded American Christians.”
Kudos on the save!
You are the Hope Solo of Turley’s blog!
Inga,
Have you ever served you country in combat in a war?
Have you ever been drafted and shipped off to another country to “fight for your country?”
Did anyone indicate that a heterosexual red blooded American Christians are shooting up Recruitment Centers? More likely one of them will choose a black church at a prayer meeting to shoot people they hate.
Inga – do you have any proof that whites are burning black churches?
Paul, I didn’t say anyone was burning black churches, I said someone shot up a black church prayer group. Do you need to put on your bifocals?
Well, except for the goats.
Pogo, chances are much higher that this mid eastern shooter was heterosexual.
“Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez has been identified by CBS News as the gunman who fatally shot four Marines and wounded a police officer on Thursday in shootings at two military recruiting and training centers in Chattanooga, Tennessee.”
Another victory for Multiculturalism against the cis-gender heteronormative Christian patriarchy!
Sounds like you just addressed yourself.
John/ Forgot,
What are you blabbering about? You dismiss this killing of five military members on our own soil in a possible terrorist attack and continue on in your vein of a daily rant about whatthehellever you usually rant about. Seriously man, what is wrong with you?
I. Annie, the artist formerly know as Inga,
Just a brief, fleeting observation:
“5 military members were killed”…other things…”are of no consequence.”
Among many other historical American events, 58,000 were killed in Vietnam and nobody gave a —- about that. They just said go home now. Then they brought in all the Vietnamese et al. and comfortably ensconced them in Garden Grove; welfare, mortgage assistance, food stamps, free education, social security, Medicare, etc. – “can I get you anything else, Ong Nguyen?”
58,000 dead little kids from Bellflower and Peoria, “can we get you anything else?”
How about a “grand scheme of things.”
“BUT, what proof do any of you have to say that these women are lying?”
You mean, other than the Cherokee geneaologist, the one who Ms. Smith herself consulted in order to establish evidence of Cherokee heritage, who says there’s no evidence of Cherokee heritage? Other than that?
Questioning suspicious claims is not “living a life always being suspicious of people” and “assuming that people are lying.” False premise.
White people posing as part non-white ethnicity for political and personal gain has been going on for years. Activists like Ward Churcill, Andrea Smith, Elizabeth Warren, Rachel Dozeal and many others get unearned attention, money, benefits, and cultural/other promotion for posing as at least in part non-white. There’s good reason to be suspicious. Those benefits are for actual Indians, etc., not opportunistic sleazy mediocre white people. Even on a personal, individual, non-notorious level it’s pathetic and sad to waste time worrying about an ethnic heritage that is apparent to no one, no less so than people posing as and praising themselves for being part white. Just be yourself and stop bothering your ancestors to speak for you. It’s justifable to be suspicious of anyone who cannot manage that.
Correct me if I’m wrong, I may have missed a comment or point above, but you seem to favor believing fake ethnic posing unless the poser agrees to submit to a DNA test.
“they will often lie and embellish. That’s how I make my living, and it’s been lucrative.”
Funny thing, the Founders knew that would be true of the executive branch so they created the judicial branch to assure that executive actions comport with the Constitution. When, incredibly and unpredictably, the judicial branch “lies and embellishes,” the “check and balance” is:
Article II, Section 4
“The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.”
“Oh, and IF I was found to totally be part Native American…”
Sidebar – Indians are not native Americans. Check their DNA. They are “native” to Asia, having traversed to the “Americas” over the Alaskan Land Bridge. Talk about repeating the Nazi’s “Big Lie” over and over. Let’s get real here, folks. Where do they teach this c—? The indoctrination centers, AKA colleges and universities (it’s a lot like the very nonexistent anthropogenic Climate Change, the artist formerly known as Global Warming, at a theater near you). And why, when this fabricated fantasy is applied, are they not native Canadians, native Russians, native Eskimos, native Mexicans, native Paraguayans, native Belizeans, native Patagonians, native Earthians, navtive Galaxians, native Universalians, native Infinitians??? For Ch—-‘s sake, they own all of everything? Right? Because they were weak components of nature and natural selection rejected them? Really? What’s their claim to fame, being carefree nomads? Human beings trample ants and cockroaches to get what they need, want and to have their way. Life is impossible without adversely affecting other life forms. That’s life. Oops! Who assigns all this false guilt anyway? After the Big Bang, how would life have developed if it weren’t aggressive?
Native Americans. Huh!