Elizabeth Warren - 1/32nd Cherokee? How?

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http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2012/05/elizabeth-warrens-cherokee-heritage-raises-questions/

"Elizabeth Warren is under fire for reports she claimed status as a minority lawyer based on a far-back blood connection to the Cherokee line. The Boston Globe reported that the Democratic candidate challenger to Scott Brown in the Senate race in Massachusetts self-identified as a minority from 1986 to 1995, though she has no recent Native American family.
Genealogist at the New England Historic Genealogical Society Chris Child set out to hunt down Warren’s ancestry last Thursday. In less than a week, he discovered documents citing an 1894 marriage record that lists Warren’s great-great-great grandmother, O. C. Sarah Smith as Cherokee, meaning that Warren is 1/32nd Native American."


Ooops.:rolleyes:
 
I'll be damned. After digging and digging, they finally got something on her. Way to go, muckrakers! You successfully raked some muck.
 
"Politician stopped claiming to be part Indian almost twenty years ago, even though we found out that she actually has part-Indian ancestry! Stop the presses!!"

Sheesh...
 
ANTPogo said:
"Politician stopped claiming to be part Indian almost twenty years ago, even though we found out that she actually has part-Indian ancestry! Stop the presses!!"

Sheesh...
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Well, the point is she used her Native American ancestry as a sop to Harvard students' diversity concerns. Given that she has 97% European (i.e. non-diverse) ancestry it seems like a pretty cynical move to me, not to mention insulting to actual Cherokees. But maybe she can explain for herself, and I'd be more than happy to hear her out.
 
My sons qualify for Indian Education even though they are only 1/128th Native American. Go figure.
 
So isn't this a bad action of the part of Harvard, not Warren?

The story kicked off Friday when the Boston Herald reported on an article that ran in the Harvard Crimson in 1996 about students’ concerns regarding a lack of diversity among the school’s faculty. In the story, Warren, who serves as the Leo Gottlieb Professor of Law at Harvard’s Law School, was cited as Native American. Warren’s identification as Native American pre-dates her time at Harvard.
Law School directories from the Association of American Law Schools from 1986-1995 list Warren as a minority law professor. During this time Warren taught at the University of Texas School of Law and the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Though Warren reportedly said last week that she was proud of her heritage, she makes no mention of her ancestry during a profile of her childhood made by the Boston Globe. The reporter who wrote that story said he did not remember her mentioning anything about her Native American roots. Though he said in an email it was possible that he had forgotten, he thought it was “unlikely that she brought it up.”
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So technically, she really is part Cherokee. And so Harvard, which had a crappy record on diversity (see Bell, Derrick) tried to wave away concerns by pointing to Warren. But it's not like she applied to college under a minority scholarship or anything like that, did she?

Maybe I'm missing the issue?
 
Lisa Simpson said:
My sons qualify for Indian Education even though they are only 1/128th Native American. Go figure.
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I assume "Hey, I'm a minority!" is qualified somewhere with one of various legal definitions, racist or otherwise.
 


The one-drop rule lives on!

ETA: At least she can say she's more Native American than Ward Churchill.
 
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These discussions can end up quite ugly, but right now this looks fairly benign. Lots of possibilities and speculation, but no smoking gun. Different federally recognised tribes have different standards, and blood proportion might be only part of the membership qualification.

Personally, I get annoyed when people claim to be Italian or Irish when they have a longer American heritage than I do. But these discussions aren't really rational :p .

Besides, true Socialists like Warren know that Nations are illusory, bourgeoisie tools of oppression for dividing the proletariat!
 
If George Zimmerman's a cracker then Elizabeth Warren can be an American Indian. What's next? Benjamin Jealous is black?
 
geni said:
How is European not diverse? That includes everyone from the celts to the slavs.
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Whoops! Let me fix it.

<sarcasm>Given that she has 97% European (i.e. non-diverse) ancestry</sarcasm>

I agree, it's completely ridiculous to assume that all people of European descent are a monolithic, non-diverse bunch. That's academia for you!
 
I've mentioned before that I'm (probably) part Seneca. I mentioned this once in college at one of those machines that takes your face and makes it another race when the one that rendered me as a Native American, and it looked almost exactly like me with a tan and brown eyes. A friend of a friend was incredulous and seemed almost offended that I'd mention it without being sure. Now if my grandmother was correct (and there is some evidence that she was), I'm either 6.25% or 12.5%. This person said I should only claim that which I was both sure of and was the largest portion of and also it couldn't be native American, because of my light hair and blue eyes. By her criteria, I'm Italian...at 12.5%.

Race is weird and complex.
 
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