Elizabeth Warren, the super-liberal Harvard law professor and candidate for the U.S. Senate in Massachusetts, seems to have gamed the affirmative action system for her own benefit. When she was on her way up the greasy pole of law-school professorships she claimed she belonged to a “minority”–American Indian to be precise. From 1986 to 1995, while teaching at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania, she was listed in the Association of American Law Schools’ annual directory of minority law professors. But once she went to work at Harvard, and could no longer benefit by being a minority, she dropped the minority shtick.
The Boston Herald brought this fact to life; her opponent, Scott Brown, pounced, and the Warren campaign has been in damage-control mode ever since. At first they said her Indian ancestry was according to “family lore.” Now, it seems, (one senses an emergency call to a genealogist) her great great great grandmother was Cherokee. So Warren is 1/32 Indian.
Does that make her a member of a minority? Well, she’s closer to being Indian than I am, as I have to go back not five generations but 13 to get to my first American Indian ancestor, Pocahontas. (Yes, that Pocahontas. I was nearly named Powhatan, after my great great grandfather, Powhatan Gordon. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and I was named after my mother’s brother instead.) But still, 1/32? As the comedian Susan Vass noted, “Funny, she doesn’t look Siouxish.”
It’s all so reminiscent of the race laws in the old South, South Africa, Nazi Germany and other places no one wants to go back to, only in reverse. Warren Harding was haunted by the rumor that he had a black ancestor. Now a candidate for the Senate has exploited the fact that an ancestor she had never heard of until the day before yesterday was American Indian.
This kerfuffle will all be forgotten in a week, but it exposes vividly the utter bankruptcy of affirmative action.
It also exposes the utter fraudulence of Elizabeth Warren’s claim on superior civic virtue. This intellectual mother of the Occupy movement affects an attitude of high indignation over greedy one-percenters who game the system. Who knew that she was painting a self-portrait?
Please, she did show her commitment to democratizing the 1% by insisting that those possessing slightly more than 3% of the appropriate ethnic blood be granted special privilege.
"This kerfuffle will all be forgotten in a week, but it exposes vividly the utter bankruptcy of affirmative action."—100% true, but the fact that it will be forgotten in a week shows the utter bankruptcy of a very large part of our electorate's intelligence and values and of course attention span.
How is it that I consistently find a direct correlation between degree of Leftist position and disingenuousness. Perhaps, though, that can be explained by the fact that the farther Left you go you find a diminishing of "obsolete" traditional cultural values like integrity, humility, and decency. n nWhen you're not only on the side of the people, but saving the entire planet as well, it's easy to dispense with some of these cumbersome limitations in order to achieve ones most noble goals.
I get a kick out of my sister. When I worked on our family genealogy I discovered that a great grandmother was born on an Indian reservation in Oklahoma. So an assumption was made that possibly she was part or even whole native American indian. Searching through government records nothing ever showed up. And later talking with a great uncle about his mom, he pulled out a picture of her and family. The family looked about as Irish as it comes. All that was missing was the mug of Guinness and someone holding a 4 leaf clover. But that doesn't stop my sister from asking and looking through the family records, asking me questions about a possible indian connection. Some how if one can be found she believes it will give advantages for my nephews. Maybe true, we could inherit a casino, I don't know. n nMy parents were going to name me Richard. With my last name, that would have been trouble.
This is so disingenuous of Commentary. Is there no thought for the suffering she must have endured, the hidden insults from being 1/32 Cherokee? Do you honestly think she didn't feel the sting of her roughly 3% native American heritage every day, wasn't subject to "wampum" and "squaw" jokes approximately one day a month? I think instead of tearing her down, we should congratulate 31/32ths of her for pulling the other 1/32 by its bootstraps. Or moccasins.
Hmmmm……………… have you ever been to Oklahoma? Sounds like you know little about Oklahoma, the Five Civilized Tribes or Cherokees. Warren grew up in Oklahoma and does not look Indian. I grew up in Oklahoma and never once heard wampum or squaw jokes. n nIf she is truly 1/32nd Cherokee, then she should show us her DCIB card. If you are going to be self-righteous, at least get a clue.
I have a colleague who has some minuscule amount of American Indian “blood” (no such thing, or course, or even genes for that matter). He went through whatever you do to make this official. But he has never gamed it, for himself or his children. He is rather sound, and he simply revels in being able to lecture his left wing colleagues from a “minority” point of view. Ditto with the administration. The sooner we toss this pernicious nonsense overboard the better. Graduate school at my university has an application the first two pages of which are devoted to ethnic identification. i believe this is unconstitutional and certainly un American.
Her campaign narrative (eaten up by the MSM) is that she grew up dirt poor. In fact, she drove an MG to high school. Bottom line: She is a liar.
Sounds like Warren's relative never registered. I have heard that Harvard did claim her as a minority professor — to show diversity. They didn't have any Native Americans. I am not surprised Penn and Harvard did not ask for her DCIB card (Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood). I would think that Texas would have asked. Obviously, her relative did not register with the Dawes Commissions. Many Indians did not. Those who didn't can have a difficult time proving they should be considered members of a specific tribe. It is not impossible though. One has to wonder if Warren ever tried to prove tribal membership. n n