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October 15, 2018
During Senator Elizabeth Warren’s career in academia from 1984 thru 1994 she identfied herself as a minority of Native American heritage. For years she has been dogged with accusations that she made this dubious claim to further her career. She has rebuked the allegation that she falsely claimed Native American status to benefit from affirmative action policies, and today provided DNA “evidence” to back up her claim of Native American ancestry.
Unbelievably, Warren claims that she never identified as Native American to further her career. However, it’s interesting that she made these claims during a period when they could benefit her career the most. In the eighties, she listed herself as Native American in an important legal directory reviewed by deans and hiring committees. She also continued to identify as Native American while teaching at the University Of Pennsylvania and at Harvard law School, until she became a tenured professor in 1995.
Harvard Law professor, Charles Fried, who sat on the appointing committee that recommended Warren for hire in 1995 didn’t believe that her Native American background was a factor in her hiring. (It’s worth noting that Fried donated to Warren’s senatorial, campaign after she left Harvard.) Parodoxically, in spite of downplaying the significance of Warren’s claimed minority status on her hire, Harvard frequently touted Warren’s ancestry to bolster their diversity hiring record. She was even referred to as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color” in a 1997 Fordham law review piece by Harvard law school spokesperson Mike Chmura.
Warren has been so dishonest about her claims of Native American ancestry that laughably in 2012 she even made the ridiculous claim that her father’s family did not want him to marry her mother because she was a Cherokee Indian.
To rebut the taunts, particularly from President Trump, Warren submitted to a DNA test. With much fanfare Warren and the gleeful media declared Warren vindicated, and that Trump owes her a million dollars. Apparently at a campaign rally Trump stated that if Warren had a DNA test that revealed she was Native American he would give her a million dollars.
Should Trump pay up? Not so fast. There are two big caveats to Warren’s ancestry result. The DNA analysis conducted by Carlos Bustamante, a Stanford University professor, found that Warren had a remote Native American ancestor possibly 6- 10 generations removed. He concluded that “the vast majority” of Warren’s DNA is European, and that she may be 1/64th to 1/1024th Native American. Based on the latter figures that would make her .098% Native American. To put this in perspective, according to a comprehensive study by the Genetic Literacy Project, the average European American, who would never claim Native Indian heritage, is .18% – almost double Warren’s possible ethnic makeup.
Incredibly even the Cherokee Nation released a harsh statement condemning Warren.
“Current DNA tests do not even distinguish whether a person’s ancestors were indigenous to North or South America,” Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. said in a press release.
“Sovereign tribal nations set their own legal requirements for citizenship, and while DNA tests can be used to determine lineage, such as paternity to an individual, it is not evidence for tribal affiliation,” Hoskin continued. “Using a DNA test to lay claim to any connection to the Cherokee Nation or any tribal nation, even vaguely, is inappropriate and wrong. It makes a mockery out of DNA tests and its legitimate uses while also dishonoring legitimate tribal governments and their citizens, whose ancestors are well documented and whose heritage is proven. Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.”
The second caveat is that detecting DNA for Native Americans is difficult because Native American leaders have asked tribal members not to participate in genetic databases. There is therefore a dearth of Native American DNA available for comparison. Consequently in evaluating Warrens’s genetics Bustamante used samples from Mexico, Peru, and Columbia to stand in for Native Americans.
For Warren to claim minority status throughout her years in academia, and beyond, is nothing short of resume fraud. Her Native American heritage is so minuscule that this DNA analysis rather than refute the claims made by Trump and other Republicans, actually bolsters their argument. Warren is a fraud. Her droplet of Native Indian blood is laughable.
It’s suspected that she is gearing to run against Trump in 2020. Let’s hope so. Her chances of beating Trump are about as high as her percentage of Native American blood.
