Like Elizabeth Warren, Scott Adams grew up believing he had substantial Native American ancestry... and he confesses that he once checked the box as Native American to see what would happen.

It had a radical affect on the college application process, he says. Offers of full scholarships poured in...



... but that made him realize it wasn't right to hold himself out as Native American. He didn't take any of the offers and he didn't check the box again.

"I'll tell ya — checking the box back in my childhood opened up the heavens, and you got free stuff."

Adams does however endorse checking the box if you are low-income person who can honestly check the box and take advantage in a way the system was designed to give advantage. If that's what you did, then "I don't think there's anything to apologize for."

But in his case, he says, "it was a step too far." He knew, even at the time, it would be wrong for him. But he "won't hold it against" Elizabeth Warren if she identified herself in the way she believed was true and took the advantage that the system was trying to give people who were what she believed she was. "She wasn't rich either, was she?"

Adams doesn't talk about whether he would advise his younger self to take the scholarships. If it was good ethics for Warren to take the advantage, was teenage Scott Adams deluded to deny himself a benefit? And Elizabeth Warren continued to take advantage far into her adulthood. What does Scott think about that? He doesn't say.

By the way, I don't believe Warren has apologized for holding herself out as a person with Native American ancestry and accepting the advantages that flowed from that self-identification. I think she's only apologized for failing to acknowledge that American Indian tribes care about tribal membership and object to individuals self-identifying based on their own claims of ancestry or genetic tests. She still asserts, I believe, that she never checked the box dishonestly and even claims that her DNA test, which shows a smidgeon of Native American ancestry, supports her family's story, which was the basis of her belief that she could check the box.

And Scott Adams eventually took a DNA test too. He has no Native American ancestry at all.