WaPo uncovers Liz Warren’s 1986 bar app. Race handwritten as “American Indian”

[Anonymous]

The legitimacy of Warren’s claims to Native American heritage has certainly been challenged by many critics, and it is true that while Warren was at U. Penn. Law School she put herself on the “Minority Law Teacher” list as Native American) in the faculty directory of the Association of American Law Schools, and that Harvard Law School at one time promoted Warren as a Native American faculty member. But specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard (at least in part) through her claims to Native American heritage is lacking. Warren denied applying for special consideration as a person of Native American heritage during her career, and when the matter was examined in 2012 in response to Brown’s claims, people with whom Warren had worked similarly denied her ancestral background’s factoring into the professional opportunities afforded her:

The former chairman of the American Association of Law Schools, David Bernstein, told the Herald that the group’s directory once served as a tip sheet for administrators. “In the old days before the Internet, you’d pull out the AALS directory and look up people,” he said. “There are schools that, if they were looking for a minority faculty member, would go to that list and might say, ‘I didn’t know Elizabeth Warren was a minority.'”Warren said she didn’t know Harvard had used her heritage as proof of diversity until reading about the issue in the news, according to a Herald report. She also denied that she ever tried to gain a professional advantage through her lineage.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-wealthy-native-american/

[Anonymous]

Wasn't this discovered before? I thought it was either a thread or it was posted on another thread.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I don't care. Do you?

Do I care that the odds favorite to become the next potus, the first female potus, just saw her political career implode? Yeah, I kinda do care.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The legitimacy of Warren’s claims to Native American heritage has certainly been challenged by many critics, and it is true that while Warren was at U. Penn. Law School she put herself on the “Minority Law Teacher” list as Native American) in the faculty directory of the Association of American Law Schools, and that Harvard Law School at one time promoted Warren as a Native American faculty member. But specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard (at least in part) through her claims to Native American heritage is lacking. Warren denied applying for special consideration as a person of Native American heritage during her career, and when the matter was examined in 2012 in response to Brown’s claims, people with whom Warren had worked similarly denied her ancestral background’s factoring into the professional opportunities afforded her:

The former chairman of the American Association of Law Schools, David Bernstein, told the Herald that the group’s directory once served as a tip sheet for administrators. “In the old days before the Internet, you’d pull out the AALS directory and look up people,” he said. “There are schools that, if they were looking for a minority faculty member, would go to that list and might say, ‘I didn’t know Elizabeth Warren was a minority.'”Warren said she didn’t know Harvard had used her heritage as proof of diversity until reading about the issue in the news, according to a Herald report. She also denied that she ever tried to gain a professional advantage through her lineage.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/elizabeth-warren-wealthy-native-american/

Snopes might need to add an addendum to their evaluation of this issue.

[Anonymous]

I'm a liberal, and I didn't care up until that bar application. It's one thing to claim some racial or ethnic heritage, ie mixed ancestry. It's another to put it down as your race. To say that is to employ the "one drop rule" definition of race, which I abhor.

[Anonymous]

What do Native Americans think of this?

[Anonymous]

All of this stuff that happened in people's pasts is interesting, but does it mean that they are still operating the same way now? Does it mean that a person is to be forever judged based on what the person did years ago? Or is it more important to understand what kind of a person they are now?

[Anonymous]

Who careas? It’s not like bar applications are a selective process and they can only admit so many so she got some kind of edge identifying as American Indian. This is truly a situation where it didn’t help or hurt her, it just was. If anything, this substantiates to me that she really did identify as American Indian if she’s using it in contexts where it doesn’t matter.

[Anonymous]

What I find most interesting about this is that she was working at UT Austin. 727 East 26th is the law school, the street name has been changed since then but the law school is still there.

Anyway, I don't think there were guidelines at that time about how much native american heritage you had to have documented to claim it for the bar association. She is part native american (and her DNA has shown that).

[Anonymous]

A bar registration means absolutely nothing. It's for internal member tracking purposes. There is no advantage in the listing - indeed, many bars used to ask this exact information (or required a picture) to keep minorities OUT of the bar. There are absolutely no laws governing how people self identify. If I am 1/16 African-American - I can identify as African American. If I am 1/16 Native American - I can identify as Native American. There are many Native Americans who are not a member of tribal rolls (or have been expunged from tribal rolls for political purposes to avoid having to share in tribal profits). We don't get to police how people self-identify. What Native Americans are saying is that our people have literally and physically been raped 100x over, so there are many white people with Native American "blood." Just like there are many African Americans with white (or Native American) blood, and if you can pass as white and haven't lived our experience, don't say you are one of us. They are free to feel that way. And EW is free to claim that she is Native American, Native American and white, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What I find most interesting about this is that she was working at UT Austin. 727 East 26th is the law school, the street name has been changed since then but the law school is still there.

Anyway, I don't think there were guidelines at that time about how much native american heritage you had to have documented to claim it for the bar association. She is part native american (and her DNA has shown that).

Elizabeth Warren Apologizes to Cherokee Nation for DNA Test

Senator Elizabeth Warren has tried to put a nagging controversy behind her by apologizing privately to a leader of the Cherokee Nation for her decision to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry last year, a move that had angered some tribal leaders and ignited a significant political backlash.

But mixed reactions among prominent Native American critics Friday suggested that Ms. Warren might still have further to go.

Some Native American leaders gave her credit for the apology and political figures, for the most part, played down the issue.

But others remain unsatisfied.

“This still isn’t transparent,” said Twila Barnes, a Cherokee genealogist who has been critical of Ms. Warren’s claims of native ancestry since it became national news in 2012. “She needs to go public and say she fully takes responsibility and that the DNA test was ridiculous. There is still something about this that feels off.”

In the column, Mr. Hoskin said Ms. Warren was not a Cherokee citizen, even though her genetic test results showed strong evidence that Ms. Warren has a Native American pedigree “6-10 generations ago.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-dna.amp.html

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A bar registration means absolutely nothing. It's for internal member tracking purposes. There is no advantage in the listing - indeed, many bars used to ask this exact information (or required a picture) to keep minorities OUT of the bar. There are absolutely no laws governing how people self identify. If I am 1/16 African-American - I can identify as African American. If I am 1/16 Native American - I can identify as Native American. There are many Native Americans who are not a member of tribal rolls (or have been expunged from tribal rolls for political purposes to avoid having to share in tribal profits). We don't get to police how people self-identify. What Native Americans are saying is that our people have literally and physically been raped 100x over, so there are many white people with Native American "blood." Just like there are many African Americans with white (or Native American) blood, and if you can pass as white and haven't lived our experience, don't say you are one of us. They are free to feel that way. And EW is free to claim that she is Native American, Native American and white, etc.

Ms. Warren’s test did not take into account that, for most Native Americans, culture and kinship is what creates tribal membership — not blood, he said.

“This concept of family is key to understanding why citizenship matters,” Mr. Hoskin wrote. “That is why it offends us when some of our national leaders seek to ascribe inappropriately membership or citizenship to themselves. They would be welcome to our table as friends, but claiming to be family to gain a spot at the table is unwelcome.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-dna.amp.html

Except actual Native Americans get pi&&ed off when you are a culture vulture.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a liberal, and I didn't care up until that bar application. It's one thing to claim some racial or ethnic heritage, ie mixed ancestry. It's another to put it down as your race. To say that is to employ the "one drop rule" definition of race, which I abhor.

I hear what you are saying, but is it really authentic for you to judge based on the standards of NOW? In 1986, MANY people DID ascribe to the one drop rule. You may not agree with it, and I am sure Warren doesn't now, and I don't now and MANY people don't now.

My dh is mixed race and in 1986 NO ONE was writing in more than one thing. It wasn't a thing to do then. Would you judge his parents NOW for writing just one thing down for their kids back in the 1980s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What I find most interesting about this is that she was working at UT Austin. 727 East 26th is the law school, the street name has been changed since then but the law school is still there.

Anyway, I don't think there were guidelines at that time about how much native american heritage you had to have documented to claim it for the bar association. She is part native american (and her DNA has shown that).

Elizabeth Warren Apologizes to Cherokee Nation for DNA Test

Senator Elizabeth Warren has tried to put a nagging controversy behind her by apologizing privately to a leader of the Cherokee Nation for her decision to take a DNA test to prove her Native American ancestry last year, a move that had angered some tribal leaders and ignited a significant political backlash.

But mixed reactions among prominent Native American critics Friday suggested that Ms. Warren might still have further to go.

Some Native American leaders gave her credit for the apology and political figures, for the most part, played down the issue.

But others remain unsatisfied.

“This still isn’t transparent,” said Twila Barnes, a Cherokee genealogist who has been critical of Ms. Warren’s claims of native ancestry since it became national news in 2012. “She needs to go public and say she fully takes responsibility and that the DNA test was ridiculous. There is still something about this that feels off.”

In the column, Mr. Hoskin said Ms. Warren was not a Cherokee citizen, even though her genetic test results showed strong evidence that Ms. Warren has a Native American pedigree “6-10 generations ago.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-dna.amp.html

You quoted me. Yes, she did apologize. She wishes she had not taken the test. HOWEVER, this application AND her taking the test show that she truly believed that she was native american. NOW the issues of tribal membership are very different and I would say that not just SHE, but many of us have learned about it and our thinking has evolved through this process.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A bar registration means absolutely nothing. It's for internal member tracking purposes. There is no advantage in the listing - indeed, many bars used to ask this exact information (or required a picture) to keep minorities OUT of the bar. There are absolutely no laws governing how people self identify. If I am 1/16 African-American - I can identify as African American. If I am 1/16 Native American - I can identify as Native American. There are many Native Americans who are not a member of tribal rolls (or have been expunged from tribal rolls for political purposes to avoid having to share in tribal profits). We don't get to police how people self-identify. What Native Americans are saying is that our people have literally and physically been raped 100x over, so there are many white people with Native American "blood." Just like there are many African Americans with white (or Native American) blood, and if you can pass as white and haven't lived our experience, don't say you are one of us. They are free to feel that way. And EW is free to claim that she is Native American, Native American and white, etc.

Ms. Warren’s test did not take into account that, for most Native Americans, culture and kinship is what creates tribal membership — not blood, he said.

“This concept of family is key to understanding why citizenship matters,” Mr. Hoskin wrote. “That is why it offends us when some of our national leaders seek to ascribe inappropriately membership or citizenship to themselves. They would be welcome to our table as friends, but claiming to be family to gain a spot at the table is unwelcome.”

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.nytimes.com/2019/02/01/us/politics/elizabeth-warren-cherokee-dna.amp.html

Except actual Native Americans get pi&&ed off when you are a culture vulture.

Yes, NOW. The politics around tribal membership and identity and Native American identity have evolved in the last 30 years. I follow a huge number of native american activists. What she claimed at the time was not wrong by those standards, but now it is wrong according to the politics of today.