David Bernstein affirms:
We know something else with 90%+ certainty: (at least some) folks at Harvard were almost certainly aware that she identified as a minority law professor, though they may not have known which ethnic group she claimed to be belong to, and it may not have played any role in her hiring.
But it gets even more interesting: once Warren joined the Harvard faculty, she dropped off the list of minority law faculty. Now that’s passing strange. When the AALS directory form came around before Warren arrived at Harvard, she was proud enough of her Native American ancestry to ask that she be listed among the minority law professors.... Once she arrived at Harvard, however, she no longer chose to be listed as a minority law professor.
If those are the facts, what should we infer? Being on the list of minority law professors served her interest in advancement, but the claim was weak and potentially embarrassing, so it was deleted...
after she achieved what was the ultimate advancement (to Harvard Law School)? I'm just guessing. Do you have a more apt inference? In any event, it's a question that goes to honesty.
Posts
87 comments:
I would be curious about the timing. Did she disappear from the list about the time it came out that Ward Churchill was not, in fact, of Native American descent?
Maybe she found out what squaw meant.
The tribes are deluged with phony Indian claims now that casinos are making it profitable to be an Indian,
She's just one more phony.ntiettI renerner
A very left of center Harvard law professor (is there any other kind?) is a phony.
Color me stunned.
I'd counter by claiming cowboy ancestry.
Kinky Friedman (doing spiritual indian voice)
You can't own land, you can't own a horse or a dog or a waterfall, you can only own a casino.
just another limosine liberal.
Siouxish American Princess.
Kind of reinforces the idea ol' Barack was a diversity hire, too.
Michael K said...
The tribes are deluged with phony Indian claims now that casinos are making it profitable to be an Indian
Insta links to a good line on PowerLine, "Could Ward Churchill and Elizabeth Warren marry and franchise a chain of Forked Tongue Casinos for other fake Indians?".
It's like stolen valor, except it's only valor to the left, which in this case is in charge of career advancement.
The right doesn't care one way or the other about indian ancestry, which gives the affair an odd nonscandal status.
Howie Carr in today's Boston Herald.
Indian lore will play OK in Elizabeth Warren’s ‘tribe’
There’s an old saying in the Indian Nation: When accused of being a fake Indian, go on the warpath.
And so we have Granny Warren, the carpetbagging Democrat candidate for the U.S. Senate doubling down after being unable to produce a scintilla of evidence to back up her claims to a piece of the racial-preference racket.
Evidence? She don’t need no stinkin’ evidence. She’s got her family “lore.” She’s “proud” to be an Indian. It’s the kind of fact-free, how-dare-you defense only a Beautiful Person could get away with.
Remember those two Boston firefighters who bought an ancient sepia-tinted photograph of an old Indian woman at a yard sale or somewhere and claimed it was their grandmother?
Those jakes weren’t seeking any special treatment — they just wanted the same deal as Barack Obama and Deval Patrick. The city came down on them, but then, they were just Irish street guys. They acted stupidly. More importantly, they didn’t have the Harvard shield, not to mention the breathtaking sanctimony of Pocahontas Warren.
Her campaign is still looking for “evidence.” In the meantime they’ll be praying the story goes to the Happy Hunting Ground, just like her demands to a New York reporter that her $1.7 million teepee in Cambridge be considered “off the record.”
The fact is, you can’t get much lower than being accused of being a fake Indian. It puts you in the same category as that pony-tailed fraud from the University of Colorado, Ward Churchill. You remember, the fake Indian who said all the people murdered in the World Trade Center on 9/11 were “little Eichmanns.”
Now she claims she doesn’t “recall” if she played the race card when she applied for her big-wampum $350,000-a-year job at Harvard Law. You see, it was so many moons — I mean years, ago. Sounds like a lot of bull — Sitting Bull.
She even said she knew nothing about Harvard Law bragging about her alleged Indian heritage until she read about it in the Herald. More Sitting Bull from the Veritas crowd.
Granny knows how this plays out from here. A group of Indians — real Indians — will demand that she release her employment application to Harvard Law, so we can see what box she really checked off under race, as if we don’t already have a pretty good idea.
Poor Granny. When she got into this fight, she thought it was going to be a coronation. Instead, it’s turning into the Battle of the Little Bighorn. And so far anyway, she’s Gen. George Armstrong Custer.
I'd like to hear from any Native-American law professors who might have gotten the HLS job if Warren hadn't used this ploy.
Cousin tried to find evidence she was part Cherokee to get money for law school. She failed. The same family history that said G-grandma was half Cherokee said G-grandpa was so ashamed about it he wouldn't let her apply for the government money available then. Guess Cousin should have just made the claim anyway. Darn those Evangelical Christian values.
People tend to act in their own self interest. Liberals tend to regard their own self interest as a life affirming ideal. Any further examination of this issue will be cited as an example of how sexist her critics are.
"Pass-Fail."
"Being on the list of ______ served her interest in advancement,"
The Amerindian—Raped and pillaged by another White Eyes, 21st century style!
This must be one of those "unintended consequences" things. No one could have imagined people would falsely claim minority status when it became politically or financially expedient to do so. It's a mystery.
wv nsintly mearywo
Sometimes I think the word verify has a killer sense of humor.
extreme liberal, Democrat, politician, and this is a "question that goes to honesty"?!
This just further shows what a huge mistake race based affirmative action is. All the Little Victims jockeying for preference based on who their ancestors were, like some sort of mutant Aristocracy.
Years ago during a class I was taking that included several Bureau of Indian Affairs students, I asked a buddy of mine who is a Chippawa about a blond-haired blue-eyed Indian in our group and his response was "He's Cherokee, they'll let anyone into their club."
There are "Hoopa" and "Urock" Indians near where I live that are whiter than I am and I have blonde hair blue eyes and burst into flames in the sun.
But hey, the check clears for them so they're set.
The essence of expedience explained by a Navajo adage: “(Brother) Hare is white in Winter, brown in Summer. If he could be green in Spring and gray in Autumn, he would last forever.”
William: Liberals tend to regard their own self interest as a life affirming ideal. Any further examination of this issue will be cited as an example of how sexist her critics are.
That's it.
The meritocracy will even use (false/remote) ancestry to lay claim to being one of the disenfranchised.
Elizabeth Warren, in her mind, identifies with the little people she will serve and advocate for.
In light of the Out-of-Africa hypothesis maybe we should all just declare outselves African-American.
Anyone born in America is a native American. And every American is an African-American, as per African Genesis.
TWM said...
"He's Cherokee, they'll let anyone into their club."
I'm 1/256th Cherokee, and I can prove it. My great- great- great- great- great- great-grandfather was a North Carolina farmer who owned six slaves and married a white woman. It's in the census.
Elizabeth Warren, proving Derrick Bell inadvertently right by co-opting Bell's own sought-after reforms at Harvard Law?
Elizabeth Warren Isn't the Only One
Massachusetts Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren finds herself in a bit of a quandary. In the mid-90s there was a minor kerfuffle over the lack of diversity on Harvard Law's teaching staff. At the time, 54 of Harvard Law's 71 professors were white males. There was not a single minority female on staff. Or so they thought.
“Although the conventional wisdom among students and faculty is that the Law School faculty includes no minority women, [Law School spokesman] Chmura said professor of law Elizabeth Warren is Native American,” the Harvard Crimson wrote in 1996.
Althouse, yesterday.
But let's look at Bell's first rule:
"No matter how justified by racial injustices they are intended to remedy, civil rights policies, including affirmative action, are implemented only when they further the interests of whites."
Hello? Who implements these race-based policies like affirmative action? Liberals! Derrick Bell is saying that white people do this when and only when it works for their advantage! The critical race thinking you're invited to do here is to understand how, when white people purport to advance black people, they are really exploiting black people for their own advantage. This is an attack on the work of the Democratic Party and other liberals. Conservatives are on the sidelines of this battle.
Supports my assertion that Bell blamed racist white conservatives for thwarting the success of "civil rights policies, including affirmative action", while giving liberals, like Warren, a pass.
You know your an Indian when the Bureau of Indian Affairs sends you money. I laugh every time someone says they are Indian, and when I ask them what tribe they say "Cherokee." That's always my first clue that they are full of shit.
Doesn't just about every American family have "lore" that one of its members was an Indian?
When I went to Harvard I did NOT see any good Indians. (To paraphrase William T. Sherman).
This lady is starting to remind me of another "fairness" political hustler, John Edwards, different gender but the game remains the same.
The cancer of affirmative action. Those that are minorities, think they have deserving because they are taught to believe it is going to be an eternal compensation for "white privilege".
Those that aren't in the groups that two progressive jewish lawyers hired by LBJ to concoct for the EEO the "designated minority list" (1965) - scheme to become minorities for extra bennies and privileges.
Indians south of the Border sue to be called Native Americans, rather than hispanics. Filipinos sue because LBJ's lawyers left them off the "Pacific Islander" list of preferences.
Two brothers in Long Island trying to get coveted firefighter spots legally change their names from John and Paul Nuciano to Juan and Pedro Nunez, are promptly hired, then and get caught and fired.
It is apparantly harder to straighten out those trying to "game" LBJ's race preference system if you are hired into a university and you have clout..like Ward Churchill, Elizabeth Warren. Or are a proud, empowered black women at Duke discovered to have never fulfilled her doctrate thesis research commitments before being named a associate, then full professor.
The answer is to get rid of the cancer.
Which in many ways makes Sandra Day O'Connor as awful a Republican Presidential pick as David Souter was.
O'Connor, the judge who refused to apply legal reasoning to her opinions and ruled as if she was just a legislator with a vote. Enshrining abortion and affirmative action ("ummm...for..ummm another 25 years...a number I just plucked out of my clueless ass").
I believe that a plurality of African-Americans have some Scotch-Irish blood. I've also read somewhere that most of the Scotch Irish who were here before the 19th century, have some Indian blood. There's something in nature that doesn't like a fence, and that is particularly true when T&A are on the other side of the fence......I think it's quite possible that Elizabeth Warren has Indian blood, but it's quite a reach to say that she suffered because of it or that she is any way deserving of preferential treatment.
The administrators at Harvard Law and Penn can't be enjoying this weekend's news...
From the Harvard Crimson: Welcome Guinier
"Harvard Law School currently has only one tenured minority woman, Gottlieb Professor of Law Elizabeth Warren, who is Native American. The racial makeup of the HLS Faculty has been an issue before as well: in 1989, Harvard dismissed Weld Professor of Law Derrick A. Bell after 18 years of teaching because the noted expert on race and law refused to end his leave in protest of the absence of minority women on HLS faculty."
And then... Penn’s vice-dean resigns
"The vice dean of the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania resigned Thursday, one day after he was placed on administrative leave pending an investigation about his false claim to have a doctoral degree.
Penn announced the resignation of Doug E. Lynch, who has been a top official in the education program since 2004.
Lynch has claimed on his resume that he received the degree from Columbia University. A faculty website repeatedly referred to him as Dr. Lynch.
Columbia confirmed he is enrolled in a doctoral program, but has not received his degree.
A university spokeswoman said on Wednesday that Lynch, 47, was unaware he didn't have the degree."
I take it this means she's from the same tribe as Algonquin J Calhoun.
sydney said...
Doesn't just about every American family have "lore" that one of its members was an Indian?
Nope, but I'm trying to verify at least one of my forebears was an Indian fighter.
Does that count?
James Pawlak said...
When I went to Harvard I did NOT see any good Indians. (To paraphrase William T. Sherman).
No, Phil Sheridan.
Cump said, "The more we kill this year, the fewer we have to kill next year".
Whether he was talking about redskins or boys in butternut is up for grabs.
There may be more here than just gotcha politics. The Govt has often indicted businesses and individuals for falsely claiming to be a minority-owned business for purposes of obtaining govt contracting work where various set asides for such entities have been established. If Warren claimed minority status to gain a benefit, she may well have run afoul of the same thing. Since she has apparently not made any such claim after moving to HLS in 1996 or so, the limitations period on any such offense would have run long ago. But no one in academia was unaware of the intense interest by universities in 'improving' their diversity stats for both students and faculty (HLS in particular had a famous spat leading to Derrick Bell's departure when the school refused to make another visitor from Penn an offer).
I suspect that the Brown canpaign is right to think that this story will have legs in the election. Mass has a lot of blue-collar Dems who have no use for racial preferences; they especially have no use for folks caught trying to game the system.
Put Skip Gates on her case and do a DNA map of her ancestors.
She does fight like an Indian fights sneaking up and shooting from behind affirmative action rocks and trees while dressed up as an everyday Puritan.
She may just have been after a handicapped parking sticker.
From Slate's Dear Prudence advice column
Identification, Please
I’ve been offered a scholarship for Hispanic students—but it turns out I may not even be Hispanic. Does it matter?
http://www.slate.com/articles/life/dear_prudence/2012/04/dear_prudie_i_just_discovered_i_may_not_be_hispanic_what_does_this_mean_for_my_scholarship_.html
I first found out that I was Hispanic when I was a first-year student at UT Law. I had innocently thought I was Irish-English, just like my blue-eyed, fair-skinned parents. But, sure enough, I was Hispanic by virtue of having been born while they were sojourning in Paraguay. I wasted no time in applying for the only Affirmative-Action Hispanic scholarship of my class, which I won, no doubt because I had come to Law School after a real education gained outside of Texas.
But before that, and sometimes afterward, I checked off that I'm White, which I am. So I think the confusion over Elisabeth Warren's "ethnicity" is perfectly natural. All my Amerikan friends and all my Brazilian friends laugh whenever I say I'm Paraguayan, especially when Paraguay beats Brazil in soccer.
Anyway, UT Law pretends to promote "diversity," and what can be more diverse than blue-eyed, fair-skinned Latinos and Indians? Affirmative Action is a crock.
Go to source web page>>
Half Breed
My father married a pure Cherokee
My mother's people were ashamed of me
The Indians said I was white by law
The white man always called me "Indian Squaw"
Chorus
Half-breed, that's all I ever heard
Half-breed, how I learned to hate the word
Half-breed, she's no good they warned
Both sides were against me since the day I was born
We never settled, went from town to town
When you're not welcome you don't hang around
The other children always laughed at me
"Give her a feather, she's a Cherokee"
Indian Reservation (The Lament of the Cherokee Reservation Indian)
Though I wear a shirt and tie
I'm still part redman deep inside
Cherokee people, Cherokee tribe
So proud to live, so proud to die
But maybe someday when they learn
Cherokee nation will return,
will return,
will return,
will return,
will return
Almost anyone can claim Native American status as the Affirmative Action people never check. You can get preferential loans, and preference in hiring so there is a big incentive to cheat. Because HR is not supposed to refer to this (but do) it's not a crime to have done it, nor is it a crime for HR to have used it. Therefore, if caught, you can just check another box. This is what Ward Churchill did. But there is at least one Ward Churchill at every major institution. They are mostly fakes.
I'm not a lawyer. Be thankful for that. Trus tme. :-)
But I am puzzled a bit here (naive maybe?) ... ...why does it matter if a "law professor" is minority or not? Beyond statistics of affirmative actions I mean...whihc is not legal but administrative criteria. Does it elevate their knowledge, skills and abilities, to teach in this case?
If Alan Dershowitz were to discover distant hispanic ancestry, would it make a difference. If Ann Alhouse discovered distnt native American ancestry would that make her more, or less, or still fundanmentally Ann Althouse, Professor of Law?
Sometimes we make everything just too damn hard.
And so far anyway, she’s Gen. George Armstrong Custer.
Well, at least she can be called "Yellow Hair"
The reverse of this is also true: if you want to condemn someone, just call them white. That's what the president did to Zimmerman, even though Zimmerman has a black grandfather from Peru. Race is a hustle. I think all intelligent people realize this. Race and gender are both hustles.
A friend of mine is the son of Cuban refugees. He was a child when Castro took over and remembers "Papa Fidel." His parents sent him to live with relatives in Florida until they could get out but they were stuck for some years. In the meantime, he lived in an orphanage.
Years later, he applied to Cal medical school and was concerned that he didn't hear from them for a long time. He finally drove to San Francisco and asked the admissions people. He was told his application was held up in the "Hispanic" committee. He asked if he could just be considered white.
A week later, his acceptance letter came.
The entire A.A. game is a scam. Try getting any agency to define what qualifies someone as "black." It is essentially a self-declared piece of HR data. Sort of, "you are what you want to be."
One exception, at least in Minnesota, was "Native American." Here you could only qualify with enrolled-membership in a tribe. That depends on tribal rules, some of which allow as little as 1/16th to qualify.
That disqualifies the "grandpa said that way back ..." rationale for getting some people onto the EEOC reports required for government contracts.
EEOC auditors just count the declarations in the personnel files, they don't do skin-color testing, don't you know!
That Howie Carr thing is so retro... I haven't seen references to stuff like the "happy hunting ground" and "many moons" in a long time.
Didn't that get consigned to the dustbin along with "how" and broken Engish with "um" inserted (as in "smoke-um peace pipe")?
Sure, there could be an innocent explanation, but I think that it is more logical that she used her "Native American" heritage to advance, until she no longer needed it, and then dropped it, since otherwise her scholarship would be suspect because of being by an AA hire.
I think that this is one of the reasons that Justice Thomas was so heated about the claims that he was an AA hire during his confirmation hearings - that however well he did in life, it would be attributed to being because of his AA status as an aggrieved minority. And, is probably why he is invariably the strongest voice against AA of any type on the Court.
"Being on the list of minority law professors served her interest in advancement, but the claim was weak and potentially embarrassing, so it was deleted... after she achieved what was the ultimate advancement (to Harvard Law School)? I'm just guessing. Do you have a more apt inference?
Kudos to Ms Warren!
Isn't it completely obvious what she did here?
She totally worked the affirmative action scam.
She knew it could get her an advantage for a job she might not otherwise get; she also knew that the affirmative action tag is a black mark, under which her qualifications for the job would forever be questioned - just like Liberals are convinced some people need affirmative action to overcome their lack of merit - she did not want to be so judged by her new colleagues.
So she worked it. Used the AA tag to get the job she might not get on her own merits; then, having secured the job, ditched the AA tag that would have alerted her colleagues she shouldn't be taken seriously - after all, she was an affirmative action hire.
Like I said, kudos to Ms Warren for totally working the system.
"Sure, there could be an innocent explanation, but I think that it is more logical that she used her "Native American" heritage to advance, until she no longer needed it, and then dropped it, since otherwise her scholarship would be suspect because of being by an AA hire."
Yep. This is exactly the deal here.
As to honesty, who are we kidding here? Is that even a reasonable option?
Maybe it's something she doesn't think about very much. Maybe she happened to remember to check that box the first time, but forgot the second time.
I wonder how much longer Americans will defer their dignity to accommodate progressive causes. Surely they must realize that they are individually being exploited and extorted to empower and enrich a select few.
Liberals are very selfish people and very closed minded.
The most embarrassed here should be Harvard for having cared in the first place.
To the donors:
"And you'll be pleased to note a staff of theoretically colorful, mostly privileged almost-bests."
I believe my grandmother claimed to be 1/64 Cherokee, so I suppose that makes me a homeopathic Native American.
How. *raises hand*
Ann Althouse said...
That Howie Carr thing is so retro... I haven't seen references to stuff like the "happy hunting ground" and "many moons" in a long time.
Didn't that get consigned to the dustbin along with "how" and broken Engish with "um" inserted (as in "smoke-um peace pipe")?
That was probably more authentic than we know.
In "Roughing It", Mark Twain quotes Indians a couple of times and they sound like that.
Remember, they used a lunar calendar - 13 moons, or months.
Kowabunga, Freeman!
My favorite affirmative action story is a friend of mine married into a Chilean family that were German in origin. They escaped Germany shortly after WWII and were actively hunted by Elie Weisel types. They went to Chile and then came to America after reinventing themselves as Hispanics. Now they get Affirmative Action appointments at places like Columbia and Yale. If you can't beat 'em, join 'em, is their family's philosophy.
Didn't that get consigned to the dustbin along with "how" and broken Engish with "um" inserted (as in "smoke-um peace pipe")?
Um, I don't think so.
;)
and honesty goes to the character of a person
My son-in-law is 1/8 Hopi and will not allow it to be used on any application. Not because he's ashamed or prejudiced, but because he knows the consequences of being an AA hire. All the AA quotas have done is make it more difficult for people to be taken seriously.
Uh, Todd Palin is half-Inuit and not once did Sarah Palin bring it up in an effort to win votes from centrists otherwise indoctrinated by the lamestream media to hate her roundly.
Of course, Sarah is classy, while Warren is not.
My grandfather was a Pontiac dealer. My family drove a Super Chief. Can I get some sort of boost into Harvard? After appointment I'll claim it was a Chevrolet if necessary.
C4,
How can O'Connor be as bad as you say? She's not Jewish after all.
Well she is part of the 1%
dave in boca
And Inuit isn't as liberal white guilt producing as Cherokee. There are cool minorities and not-so-cool minorities.
Warren is not merely white, she is white. Had she entered a Miss Nordic Maiden beauty contest as a teenager no one would have suspected a thing. At least Ward Churchill looked maybe somewhat Indian.
Siouxish American Princess.
--- Amazing. I am truly in awe!
I've been a law professor for 39 years. Overstating your qualificantions to get the "best job in education" and then trying to erase the overstatement once you get it is widely practiced by those really weren't at the top of the class at a top-ten law school.
She wanted the minority status to get the job but once she got the job she didn't want to be viewed the way she views other minority hires.
The Census Bureau didn't like it that I identified my ethnicity as: OTHER, and then wrote in "American".
They left several threatening messages on the home phone. I never returned the calls.
"homeopathic Native American"
That's good. Very very good.
In these days of DNA testing, the race,or more properly for Americans, the races, you sprang from are easily discernable. Why anyone would waste their time doing so is beyond me. At best you should claim what your grandparents are, beyond that is meaningless.
Unless, you're one of those unfortunates with both mixed race parents, and you are a different color...that can be awkward to explain.
My family has literally everything in it, so we really don't care. My wifes family was more horrified that I was a Catholic, albeit a lapsed one, than anything. They are so wasp-y, well,... I can't think of an amusing analogy, but they're really wasp-y
At this late hour, the only real question is whether she is a good law professor. If they foisted an inferior educator on the students, they done did wrong. if she is and was a good professor, perhaps it was worth it to get her in there. I would wonder if the checked box wasn't a quiet suggestion by someone trying to grease her way in at the time. Mike Piazza was selected in the last round of the draft as a favor to his uncle, the team's manager. He became the greatest hitting catcher ever by his own hard work. I think sometimes our academic institutions, law firms, etc., get too caught up in Pedigree and overlook superior people. Sometimes you just have to sneak 'em in the back door.
I'm just guessing. Do you have a more apt inference? In any event, it's a question that goes to honesty.
Yes, that you and Bernstein are jealous, petty, narcissists.
I remember former New Mexico Governor, Energy Secretary, Ambassador, etc Bill Richardson was touted as Native American before he was Hispanic.
Freder:
"Yes, that you and Bernstein are jealous, petty, narcissists."
Non sequitur much?
I believe my grandmother claimed to be 1/64 Cherokee, so I suppose that makes me a homeopathic Native American.
Well done.
I had a Grand Cherokee for 10 years.
I put Native American on my census form and when the census dude came to check my shorts I told him my family had been in the US for some 200+ years and in California longer than some Mexican families (and where the hell else was I born?) and that I considered the boxes on the census to be racist bean counting.
Yes, my Appalachian family lore has it that great-great grandmom was Indian. They said that it was considered shameful so no one talked about it. I have a 5-generation photograph of me as a toddler which includes g-g-grandmom and her daughter. Coal black hair and eyes, dark complexsion, and cheekbones like bird's wings...that's it as far as proof goes though.
But I do admit checking off the Native American box years ago when the bean-counting began, just because it pisses me off. Don't do that anymore though because of this exact situation...would not want anyone to give me a preference, or accuse me of seeking a preference.
David Burge (iowahawk)had the perfect tweet on this...
Harvard heap big proud of magic blonde squaw princess
The Cherokee nation "will return will return etc"
and it will be peopled entirely by white progressives with average board scores.
(The Cherokee Nation has a noble history and deserves better IMAO. Unfortunately, that Paul Revere and the Raiders song doomed them. Now every lackwit feels free to claim they're Cherokee.)
"the ultimate advancement (to Harvard Law School)"
and all this time I thought the ultimate advancement was to the University of Tennessee!
(fewer colorful characters around the capital, but at least your eyelashes don't freeze in the winter.)
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