Was it right for Elizabeth Warren to identify as a minority? Will voters care?
| Boston
In the already intense US Senate race in Massachusetts, a new issue聽has emerged: Did Democratic hopeful Elizabeth Warren, who claims partial native American ancestry, improperly present herself as a minority to further her academic career?
Ms. Warren's campaign says her Republican rival, incumbent Sen. Scott聽Brown, is trying to create an issue where none exists.
On Monday, a Massachusetts genealogist entered the fray by citing a聽century-old document that, if correct, would show Warren to be 1/32 Cherokee in ancestry. That would confirm her statements that, as a聽youth, she heard relatives discuss ancestral links to Cherokee and聽Delaware Indians.
It would not necessarily close the matter as an issue in the Senate聽campaign, however.
Questions would remain, and potentially would resonate with voters,聽about whether it was appropriate for her to list herself as a minority聽when her connection to native American identity appears to be so聽small.
"You don't need to take a DNA test to know that in America, Elizabeth聽Warren is viewed and treated as a white woman, with all its benefits,"聽, publisher of the Blackstonian, a news聽organization serving blacks in Boston.
Warren has said she could not recall ever listing native American background when applying for college or a job, the Boston Herald reported Saturday. The paper said Warren also commented that she didn't have a problem with Harvard Law School citing her background as part of its faculty diversity, but that she didn鈥檛 know until recently that the school had counted her as a minority.
The Brown campaign has been seeking to define Warren as a聽liberal ideologue, with views more in sync with "Occupy Wall Street"聽than with mainstream voters. This issue could play into that聽narrative, if it appears that Warren sought to use a liberal orthodoxy聽(affirmative action) to promote her own career.
And, regardless of the political stakes, the to-and-fro in recent days聽points to an interesting question of defining identity.
"The discovery of a great-great-great-grandmother does raise the聽question of when it becomes unseemly, if not outright deceptive, for聽someone to claim minority status 鈥� especially in a profession where聽ethnic preferences in hiring and promotions are routinely observed,"聽blogger聽聽Tuesday for the Denver Post.
He said Warren may land on the spectrum somewhere in between two聽Colorado figures who became nationally known. One is former University聽of Colorado professor Ward Churchill, who passed himself off as native聽American with, in Mr. Carroll's words, "no credible basis." The other is聽former Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, "who was three-eighths Northern聽Cheyenne, [and] proudly touted his Indian ancestry during his tenure聽in Congress."
Warren's campaign released statements from officials at the聽universities where she has worked, stating that her purported minority聽status had nothing to do with decisions to hire her. Those聽institutions are the University of Texas, University of Pennsylvania,聽the University of Houston Law Center, and most recently Harvard Law聽School.
Former Harvard Law Dean Robert Clark, who held that post when Warren聽was hired in the early 1990s, said "her native American heritage was聽not a factor in the discussion or the decision."
But the Boston Herald reported that Warren listed herself as a聽minority from 1986 to 1995, in the Association of American Law聽Schools' annual directory.
And at least to some degree, Harvard Law School itself claimed Warren聽as a minority member of its faculty.聽In the mid-1990s, the Harvard Crimson quoted a聽school spokesman touting the faculty's diversity, including a聽reference to one native American (Warren). Another Crimson story聽called Warren the first woman with a minority background to receive聽tenure at the school, the Boston Globe reported.
