I've read a lot about the controversy over Massachusetts Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren having apparently been listed as a minority in university reports to the federal government on the grounds that she believes she is 1/32nd Cherokee.
For example, here's an NYT op-ed "Elizabeth Warren's Birther Moment" by a law school professor who says he too is Native American, but, otherwise, I can't quite make out what he's trying to say other than that Republicans are evil.
Please correct me if I'm wrong, but I was under the impression that, legally, a person either is recognized as a member of a Native American tribe or is not. It's not like being Irish on St. Patrick's Day, it's a legal matter of whether or not one is on the tribe's rolls. It's not even like being black or Hispanic where there is a presumption in favor of self-identification. Legally, being an American Indian is not a matter of asserting one's American Indianishness, it's a matter of being accepted by a federally recognized Indian tribe as an official member.
Each tribe defines membership for itself. It's not a question of whether you think you qualify under those membership rules but whether the tribe agrees that you qualify. You are free to apply for membership, but many who apply are not accepted. Indeed, many one-time tribe members get cast out during periodic purges.
Each tribe defines membership for itself. It's not a question of whether you think you qualify under those membership rules but whether the tribe agrees that you qualify. You are free to apply for membership, but many who apply are not accepted. Indeed, many one-time tribe members get cast out during periodic purges.
This is hardly a trivial or obscure point, because who gets shares of casino profits depend upon it. Moreover, Indian tribes frequently get in the news for holding Cypress Point-style membership drives in which they drive out members. One Cherokee tribe recently expelled a few thousand blackish members for not being Cherokee enough.
I would expect law professors like Warren and Maillard to understand that. This op-ed never addresses whether or not Warren is an enrolled member of one of the Cherokee Nations. If Elizabeth Warren is an enrolled member of one of the Cherokee Nations then she is legally entitled to claim minority status. If she is not on the membership roll of the Cherokee Nation, she should not have claimed to be Cherokee for purposes of her academic legal career. We're not talking about a romantic schoolgirl or an elderly genealogy enthusiast here, we're talking about a Harvard law professor. It's not a really complicated legal question for a Harvard law professor to get right.
As usual, Republican commentators appear to be exceptionally ignorant about the mechanics of how affirmative action categories work. This is a topic that demands vastly more attention than it gets from Republicans. As a notorious raving extremist, I'm always counseling that we should attempt to understand where all sides are coming from in the major long-term arguments. For example, is race a biological phenomenon or a social construct? Well, it's both, and it's important to grasp the precise reasons for it being both and how they apply to each group.
In determining the future of the country, the usual issues of the day, such as the estate tax or whatever, aren't really that important. The real drivers of the future will be how many people are in America, who they are, and who they think they are. Only the last of the three questions is considered at all proper to bring up in Republican circles, and even then it's kept on this woozy level of how people ought to feel, with little discussion of how government policy influences how people feel about who they are. And the notion that government policies could be adjusted for the long-term benefit of the Republican Party is almost wholly alien to Republicans.
When Republicans do talk about how the government defines race and ethnicity, the level of insight is low, typically based on wishful moralizing about blacks. You'll see assertions that black people only feel black because the government gives them affirmative action for saying they are black. Most people recognize that as a pretty stupid argument, and since few whites care about anybody other than whites and blacks, the fact that this line of thought is less stupid when applied to Hispanics or to South Asians being counted in with Chinese never ever dawns on Republican "strategists."
Hence, almost no Republican critics of Warren fathom what exactly she did wrong.
As usual, Republican commentators appear to be exceptionally ignorant about the mechanics of how affirmative action categories work. This is a topic that demands vastly more attention than it gets from Republicans. As a notorious raving extremist, I'm always counseling that we should attempt to understand where all sides are coming from in the major long-term arguments. For example, is race a biological phenomenon or a social construct? Well, it's both, and it's important to grasp the precise reasons for it being both and how they apply to each group.
In determining the future of the country, the usual issues of the day, such as the estate tax or whatever, aren't really that important. The real drivers of the future will be how many people are in America, who they are, and who they think they are. Only the last of the three questions is considered at all proper to bring up in Republican circles, and even then it's kept on this woozy level of how people ought to feel, with little discussion of how government policy influences how people feel about who they are. And the notion that government policies could be adjusted for the long-term benefit of the Republican Party is almost wholly alien to Republicans.
When Republicans do talk about how the government defines race and ethnicity, the level of insight is low, typically based on wishful moralizing about blacks. You'll see assertions that black people only feel black because the government gives them affirmative action for saying they are black. Most people recognize that as a pretty stupid argument, and since few whites care about anybody other than whites and blacks, the fact that this line of thought is less stupid when applied to Hispanics or to South Asians being counted in with Chinese never ever dawns on Republican "strategists."
Hence, almost no Republican critics of Warren fathom what exactly she did wrong.
Posts
64 comments:
Yeah, but it's more than that Steve. Diversity/affirmative action/disparate impact is a HUGE part of the hiring and grant-giving process in academia.
It's not that Warren has some sort of difficulty understanding what constitutes a Native American -- it's that she lied in order to game the academic hiring process.
(Oh, ignore those former and current employers who say her supposed squaw status had nothing to do with her being hired -- they'd be open to lawsuits if they came clean, so they won't).
In short, one is entitled to ask if Warren would have been hired by Buckeye State College, never mind Harvard if she hadn't claimed Native American status.
It's not ignorance; it's fraud.
It's too bad, because I think Warren is probably one of the better thinkers on the actual economic predicament of the working and middle class that we have in public life. Of course she hasn't brought her thinking around to the immigration issue yet, but I had hopes. (Brown isn't great on immigration either).
Oh, additional point -- Warren's previous employers must have known at the time of the interview that she was no more Native American than you are. Nonetheless, they played along with her scam in order to boost their diversity credentials and shield them from citicism that they were pursuing racist hiring policies. In other words, Harvard and co., are guilty of fraud, too. If conservatives had any sense, they'd use this case to launch a frontal assault on the diversity racket.
Call me a pessimist on that one.
I happen to be 100% Native American. I was born here, I belong here, and nobody is going to make me leave.
I am not, however, an American Indian.
Hold on. If I apply to grad school and claim Native American heritage, will I or won't I be required to submit documentation? I don't ever plan to be famous, and neither my fiance nor any of my siblings dream of becoming politicians. All I want is a quiet career as a humanities instructor at some fourth tier state school... Can one get away with being a fake sorta Native American if one doesn't draw too much attention to oneself? I bet a Native American totally could find full time employment with a PhD in humanities.
It would explain why a person with a degree from Rutgers Law School could go on to a career at Harvard Law School. I can't imagine those guys letting someone without a degree from a top law school get anywhere.
I'm actually quite pleased with her jeremiads at the banks--she's done a lot of good work exposing their dirty deeds. If I were in MA, I'd probably vote for her--the more the banks suffer, the better.
Booyah!!
I bet more of us in Oklahoma are like Warren, unenrolled.
goatweed
If she had any political chops at all she'd laugh at the whole thing and say something like "Yeah I'm Chief Wannabeasenator from Cambridge. Really now this is all a tempest in a teepee." But she's a painfully earnest professor and so she's stuck with this stupid story.
In my limited experience, it is not uncommon for certified Native Americans not to look particularly ethnic.
A few years ago, I worked in a large medical center in Montana, and saw a large number of NA patients from a nearby community. Their medical care was (well) paid-for by the federal government.
Most of them look like typical mid-western or Western white people, and some of them (esp. the kids) have light-colored hair and eyes.
Steve,
Your Paypal donation option has been down for days. Don't you want money anymore?
"Of course she hasn't brought her thinking around to the immigration issue yet, but I had hopes."
A Democratic woman politician embrace immigration restriction?
When pigs fly!
Voters passed the California Civil Rights Initiative years ago. Back in 2004 I think ananti-affirmative action referendum passed by a healthy margin in Michigan.
If the Republicans had balls they'd hammer affirmative action via legislation and referendum, and bankroll lawyers to beat back the challenges in court.
It'd be a winner with the public.
Oh wait...... Republicans don't have any balls when it counts....
And once again I have to come to Steve to figure out what is going on in this fn country. Genius post. 50 dollars coming your way.
Dan in Dc
PayPal says you're unable to receive money. Fix that sh&t!!
Dan in dc
You might contact your colleague David Yeagley and ask his opinion. I do not think she claimed membership/citizenship in an Indian nation, only ancestry.
My personal opinion is in Oklahoma many people have some Cherokee ancestry to saying it is not a big deal there. She arrived in Bo-Mass and all of a sudden it become important to people, who themselves were searching for their own, non American, identity.
I remember my own college days there where some white guys who demanded disinvestment from South Africa constantly pointing out their own American Indian heritage makes them especially empathetic with the Black South Africans. Unlike me who thought taking the student union's $500 out of the most convenient bank was pointless. But I do not think Ms Warren used her heritage for personal gain.
There are various Indian Nations, only some of which have federal recognition and money. Another lesser known Cherokee:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_Cherokee_Nation_of_Kentucky
Warren did most of her lying before the internet was common and particularly pre-blogosphere. So no, it wouldn't be so easy to pull this stunt now.
Next time she spouts that great cliche about "sending a signal" everyone should shout "smoke signal".
Amazing how the Times' inane commenters join in a chorus of jeering at the evil racist Republicans while chanting "you go girl, you can be anything you want!" to Elizabeth Warren. It's quite insane and calls for a modern-day Evelyn Waugh. In the meantime, get on the Times webpage and put some sense into it. I just registered myself.
Sidenote: women commenters seem to be the most vehement and illogical supporters of Warren. Surprise surprise.
Warren is not merely white, she is white. In her younger days she could have competed in the Miss Nordic Maiden beauty contest and no one would have suspected a thing.
Warren is not merely white, she is white. In her younger days she could have competed in the Miss Nordic Maiden beauty contest and no one would have suspected a thing.
Oh for heaven's sake! The criteria is not "are you a registered member of an officially sanctioned tribe recognized by the United States Government and the Bureau of Indian Affairs". There is no blood quantum for Indianness that one must prove any more than there is a blood quantum for "blackness", or "Hispanicness".
I know Liz. She isn't stupid. She has always believed she has Indian blood and never has been ashamed of it.
My great-great-great grandfather settled in New Spain in a little village 15 miles north of what is now Vicksburg, MS. He swore his loyalty to the King of Spain, was baptized Catholic, was given a Spanish land grant and fought in the Spanish war in 1811. Was he Hispanic? His descendants joined Stephen F. Austin in Tejas. Were they Hispanic? When Santa Ana tried to oppress them, the fought him together with other Tejanos/Mexicanos in the Texas Revolution. Were they Hispanic? My mother carried the family name (an English name) proudly. Was she Hispanic? She married my father who is American rock-ribbed Presbyterian Scots-Irish. Am I Hispanic?
This whole racial/ethnic horse-puckey is just about to blow to pieces.
May I again suggest you identify yourselves to your employer as any race/ethnicity you choose, preferably a race/ethnicity that will get your employer off the hook for affirmative action so they don't have to hire a bunch of chumps. There has never been a penalty for calling yourself a Negro, or a Mexican, or a homosexual, or an atheist, or any other damn thing you want, understand? Negroes are always whining about "The One-Drop Rule" aren't they? Do you think THEY can tell if you have that proverbial "one drop"? Heck, look at what they are doing to Zimmerman! He has way more than one drop and they are beating up on him like crazy!
Employers are obliged to copy down what you say and give it to the government. No editorializing on their part is permitted. They don't use paper bag tests or ask to see your AKC breeding papers, OK?
For heaven's sake, isn't there SOMEONE from the EEOC or HR visiting this site that can explain it to you?
Finally, Liz is way cool. She is like the only decent down-to-earth working class prof at HLS. She isn't a Marxist (no matter how much the Scots-Irish push that meme) but someone who know from her small town upbringing and her own family just how stupid the regular everyday American is and just how easily they can be conned. God bless her.
"It would explain why a person with a degree from Rutgers Law School could go on to a career at Harvard Law School. I can't imagine those guys letting someone without a degree from a top law school get anywhere."
Bingo, I had wondered about that.
"A Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood or Certificate of Degree of Alaska Native Blood (both abbreviated CDIB) is an official U.S. document that certifies an individual possesses a specific degree of Native American blood of a federally recognized Indian tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community. They are issued by the Bureau of Indian Affairs after the applicant supplies a completed genealogy with supporting legal documents such as birth certificates, showing their descent, through one or both birth parents, from an enrolled Indian or an Indian listed in a base roll such as the Dawes Rolls. Blood degree cannot be obtained through adoptive parents."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Certificate_of_Degree_of_Indian_Blood
That business of excluding adoptive children is shocking and almost certainly unconstitutional. In every other circumstance, the law treats adopted children identically to biological children. So much so, foreign born adoptees qualify as natural born citizens since their birth certificates are reissued by the courts with the names (and automatic citizenship) of their adoptive American parents. Apparently its different in Indian Country.
One follow-up.
A Alinsky-ite attack on AA would be for EVERYONE to claim it. All at once. In a massive show of civil disobediance.
Everyone claim to be either American Indian, or Black, or Hispanic. Coupled with publicity stunts of swarms of Whites claiming to be Black or whatever in some demonstration ... to ridicule and freeze a guy like Reverend Al. ON CAMERA.
Lizzy needs to go on the George Lopez Show and the DNA test will tell us all how Native she is. Or maybe be a guest of Henry Gates on that PBS series. She looks kind of WASPy for a Native American. I wonder how she feels about the University of North Dakota Fighting Sioux.
To lament Warren's lack of VDARE gnosis on immigration enforcement must require a great (healthy?) distance from modern academia, and law schools in particular. We're talking about a blue-eyed blonde from the plains who thought it propitious to classify herself as other-than-white. Sailer's fixated on the federal beancounting but this is more in the spirit of black journalism trailblazer Soledad O'Brien
In east Tennessee there are bogus crypto-Cherokee groups everywhere. They usually sport that biker/POW-MIA/dreamcatcher iconography, sometimes with a rebel flag thrown in. They're harmless.
@ Maya, 5/4/12 2:22 PM
> If I apply to grad school and claim Native American heritage, will I or won't I be required to submit documentation? ... I bet a Native American totally could find full time employment with a PhD in humanities.
According to this article on the Native American ancestry (or lack thereof) of illustrious U. Colorado Professor Ward Churchill, your reasoning is sound.
However, the fact that you are commenting at this website suggests that you still have some work to do in adjusting your political hemlines to meet today's sophisticated academic standards.
Maya said...
Hold on. If I apply to grad school and claim Native American heritage, will I or won't I be required to submit documentation? I don't ever plan to be famous, and neither my fiance nor any of my siblings dream of becoming politicians. All I want is a quiet career as a humanities instructor at some fourth tier state school... Can one get away with being a fake sorta Native American if one doesn't draw too much attention to oneself? I bet a Native American totally could find full time employment with a PhD in humanities.
5/4/12 2:22 PM
I've gotta ask: Do you read any other websites or is your computer somehow reverse-firewalled to just this one?
There must have been an unlimited supply of Cherokee grandmothers a century ago. Having one of these mystical ancestors has been giving tortured alienated souls a kind of out from the dominant culture for half a century for thousands of whites, and even some blacks like Jimi Hendrix.
"Amazing how the Times' inane commenters join in a chorus of jeering" --more amazing in that not many of them can be Mass. voters and it's not a contretemps with wider ramifications beyond the occupant of a single US Senate seat. Any other Democrat picked from the first 2,000 names in the Boston phonebook would be favored in this race.
"Please correct me if I'm wrong"
You're wrong.
She sure looks like a white woman to me.
the question of whether or not americans can claim an ethnic heritage is already settled law. Here it is: you can claim a certain ethnic heritage if you believe you are of that ethnic heritage. period.
now, that law is subject to the same applications of interpretation as other areas of law. Namely, that evidence may be produced to support an argument that the person did or did not believe they had that certain heritage.
I clicked here to make the same comment as Paul Mendez.
I am native American. I was born here.
Chuck Norris is from Oklahoma and claims Cherokee ancestry. According to his Wiki page, "Other children taunted him about his mixed ethnicity, and Norris daydreamed about beating up his tormentors."
Harvard Law has classes on American Indian Law so that they can't be that unaware about Indian legal issues:
http://www.law.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/index.html?id=901
From a Bureau of Indian Affairs webpage:
In fact, there is no single federal or tribal criterion or standard that establishes a person's identity as American Indian or Alaska Native.
There are major differences, however, when the term “American Indian” is used in an ethnological sense versus its use in a political/legal sense. The rights, protections, and services provided by the United States to individual American Indians and Alaska Natives flow not from a person's identity as such in an ethnological sense, but because he or she is a member of a federally recognized tribe.
As one commenter has already pointed out, there are several state-recognized tribal bands, communities, etc. One can apparently call oneself a Native American based on membership in such a group, or simply because one's great-great-grandmother was 1/4 Cherokee. Or because one takes an interest in tribal culture. But to qualify in terms of receiving special rights, protections, or services from the Federal government, you have to be a member of a Federally-recognized tribe. I think the upshot is that, under a lot of circumstances, you're a Native American if you feel like it. If I remember correctly from my childhood, Billy Jack himself endorsed this approach, and that was good enough for me.
As a side note, here is a short bio and photo of Bill John Baker, Principal Chief of the Cherokee Nation. Looking at the bio, we see that his his great-grandmother was Cherokee, though it isn't at all clear if she was full-blooded. I've read elsewhere that he is 1/32 Cherokee.
"this is more in the spirit of black journalism trailblazer Soledad O'Brien"
Precisely! Equally dishonest in both cases.
"Please correct me if I'm wrong"
You're wrong.
Hee hee. Saying "you're wrong" doesn't constitute correction, smug and lazy smartass.
"I've gotta ask: Do you read any other websites or is your computer somehow reverse-firewalled to just this one?"
Well, I've stumbled upon several blogs that warn against going to grad school, and that big one against going to law school, and I also watched FEED on Netflix the other day. Otherwise, I spend all my free time watching hardcore interracial porn. Why? What are you getting at?
"However, the fact that you are commenting at this website suggests that you still have some work to do in adjusting your political hemlines to meet today's sophisticated academic standards."
But I could change! I'll make all kinds of sacrifices to get paid for wearing matching beret and turtleneck while drinking lattes and talking about stuff.
But, seriously, I took 2 grad French literature courses, and one of the professors was a libertarian who openly scoffed at contemporary feminism.
Steve,
Much like you have made a point that the media has never bothered to really read President Obama's autobiographies, the media has never bothered to really read "The Two-Income Trap."
Warren proposes that many families have gone bankrupt trying to get their children into good schools in good neighborhoods. Warren links SAT scores to home values but manages to avoid discussing what makes a good school or good neighborhood.
The Chuck story if true is interesting because it emphasizes race isn't just what you look like, but to whom you are related.
So if the neighborhood kids knew Chuck had a little injun in him, that's good enough for some good old fashioned schoolyard taunts.
Whether chuck looks much like a Cherokee wasn't as much of an issue back then.
On the other hand it's not much different than making fun of a kid because his mom packs sardines for lunch or something.
Wetsy Betsy Warren arrived in the perfect storm for someone like her. Harvard Law was still feeling the effects of the ongoing Clare Dalton tenure issue and were under fire for their lack of diversity. Warren was a twofer for them. When she arrived at Harvard, the Indian claim disappeared from her CV.
As was pointed out earlier, Warren is from the lowest ranked law school of any HLS prof. Despite any claims to the contrary, she was definitely an AA hire.
Massachusetts is a strange and wonderful place, indeed. Good stuff. It's linked and commented on here:
http://ex-army.blogspot.com/2012/05/elizabeth-warren-heap-big-phony.html
"past life regression" as a means for entering someone else's identity group. In "Just don't do this, Okay?", a chapter of her pamphlet Cultural Etiquette: A Guide for the Well-Intentioned, Amoja Three Rivers--apparently speaking from experience--specifically warns white people not to "go round expecting you can be part of another ethnic group now because you feel you were of that group in a former life."
-- Other Suspect Words, Concepts, And 'Heroes', The Official Politically Correct Dictionary & Handbook, Henry Beard and Christopher Cerf, Grafton, 1992.
Eilleen Regina Edwards took a lot of stick for not being Indian enough and being too Canadian. I hope the backers of Elizabeth "you go girl, you can be anything you want!" Warren said the same for Eilleen or did they discriminate because Warren is only a Canadian wannabe and not full Canadian?
I don't have all the figures I need but there are a few numbers publically available which give a hint at the value of being a minority
A Harvard degree costs about $200,000. Harvard graduates makes about $124,000 as compared to about $45,000 for the average schlub. If all of that difference were due to the simple Harvard brand it would be a very good investment. You would amortize your investment in only a year or two. I figure your Harvard $200K investment versus a free or nearly free state university degree takes about a decade to get to the break even point. That means it's an excellent investment for any young person with a couple hundred grand available.
For simplicity's sake I'll say that a Harvard degree is worth a million dollars.
Everyone should go to Harvard but that would spoil the exclusivity. So only certain people are allowed in. You have to be reasonably smart and increasingly you need an ethnic boost.
If you have straight As and 1600 on your SATs, you won't need that ethnic boost. But for the average applicant with A- grades and 1400 SATs. The ethnic boost is everything. QED it's worth a million.
That should make faking your ethnic identity grand theft.
Albertosaurus
"Hee hee. Saying "you're wrong" doesn't constitute correction, smug and lazy smartass."
I guess I need to finish that paper.
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2012/05/10000-first-prize-in-unz-historical.html?showComment=1335992646048#c5429698371564553689
Elizabeth Warren’s recent cockup vindicates the bad feelings I had when the Democrats where touting her as the second Joan of Arc who would run Obama’s new Bureau of Consumer Financial Protection. While sounding like a good idea at first blush I could not help but believe that it and she were really just Trojan horses that would ultimately become tools for transferring the Nation’s wealth to PC groups and not about good government and actual structural reform as it was being sold. The implication was always that this smart honest woman (enough with the hair and glasses already) would clean up the mess made by the stupid and corrupt men on Wall Street and in the White House. So now we have a crystal clear look at who she really is and how she would have run the agency. Looking back, how could there ever have been any doubt?
"we're talking about a Harvard law professor."
in light of recent events over the last 4 years, i'm now thinking that the phrase "harvard law professor" means a lot less than it used to mean.
today, plenty of harvard law professors appear to be not very good lawyers at all, and not that smart either.
"today, plenty of harvard law professors appear to be not very good lawyers at all, and not that smart either."
That may be, but mot of their students are the brightest. As with any educational endeavor, the intelligence of the students is more important than that of the teacher.
It's interesting how native Americans try to restrict tribal access while New Zealand Maori and Ozzy Aboriginal tribes try to recruit as many people as possible.
The Native American approach seems smarter since fewer members equals a greater share of affirmative action pie per person. And as Steve points out, this is logical since most of that pie takes the form of Casino profits.
The Maori approach is to gain as much political power as possible and use that demographic clout to extract as much from whitey as possible. However, this inevitably creates honkey opposition and only the top 10 percent of Maoris really benefit (ie, the Jesse Jackson head huckster types).
With the Native American approach everyone in the tribal gains at least gets a small benefit.
Steve, here's an interesting piece of info that I think ties into this story. Back around 1978, a book was published called "How to Get Good Grades in College" ( I can't find it on Amazon, but it's out there. Written by two girls who didn't get in to Law School, IIRC. It had lots of tricks- how to write a paper very quickly while skirting plagiarism, how to take notes well, etc. (This was all pre-internet, of course). One of their "get into grad school tips", which I remember very well, (it was just before the Bakke decision, I remember using their point in debates) was to claim membership in an Indian tribe, that couldn't be verified, to benefit from affirmative action preferences in law-school admissions- I believe they said to "claim you are an Algonquin Indian- there's no way to prove you're not! And don't worry about the ethics of screwing the system- they are sure as hell screwing you!" (Paraphrase). This was before Indian gambling, so the Indians wanted members to boost political power. I STRONGLY suspect Warren simply used this strategy, and it's now come to light. There are TONS of gimmicks like this that the smart person can use to screw the system- it's just that most people are so closely wedded to their self-image they can't imagine doing it. We're going to see a LOT more of this in the future- NOBODY checks these things. Remember Janet Cooke? Nobody even bothered to question if she was "fluent in French". Entire careers and resumes have been fabricated- remember Clinton's ambassador to Switzerland with the fake military service, buried in Arlington? I wonder if that ties into Vince Foster's alleged one-day trips to Switzerland, or Marc Rich visits? The point is a large number of our elites use these tricks.They practically never get caught, and nobody remembers these things after the initial kerfluffle. Obama's girlfriends are a composite, and all are/were white? From a Proud Black Man? And composites based on Diana Oughton, per Bill Ayers? You literally could not make this stuff up! The comedy continues!
I first saw Elizabeth Warren I thought, this is the most English looking woman in DC today. She doesn't look a bit like my family. Nice woman, but no.
Speaking of not needing AA: I was looking into what it would take to claim AA when I got my 1600 SAT in the mail. Seems I got more than my color from Germany.
So she is minority because she "thought" that she is 1/32 Indian? Someone please point to her that it is entirely possible that she has higher Neandertal ancestry than 3.1% of her purported Native American blood.
That business of excluding adoptive children is shocking and almost certainly unconstitutional.
Special rules for special people.
Regular people can't be disinherited via government agency from their adoptive parents. You have to be special to abuse adopted children.
There must have been an unlimited supply of Cherokee grandmothers a century ago.
Spooky how prolific those chicks were, huh?
The Native American approach seems smarter since fewer members equals a greater share of affirmative action pie per person. And as Steve points out, this is logical since most of that pie takes the form of Casino profits.
It is all about exclusivity. Smarter harder working folks will make the effort to turn in their paperwork. The drunk idiots will, uh, forget. And the bureaucrats processing the paperwork for the tribal council have every incentive to try to keep out as many as they can because they personally will lose money as will their kids, grandkids, etc.
I would expect law professors like Warren and Maillard to understand that. This op-ed never addresses whether or not Warren is an enrolled member of one of the Cherokee Nations. If Elizabeth Warren is an enrolled member of one of the Cherokee Nations then she is legally entitled to claim minority status.
Oh, really? Can you give me an opinion from a bureaucrat or a un iversity admissions officer or a federal judge?
The point of the power structure's preferential treatment of non-Whites is to reward its allies. The government wants as many allies as possible, and it's not going to disqualify putative Indians because they aren't officially members of tribes.
A Democratic woman politician embrace immigration restriction?
When pigs fly!
Pigs used to fly in Houston not that long ago. Hard to believe anyone here would not know who Barbara Jordan was.
"So she is minority because she "thought" that she is 1/32 Indian? Someone please point to her that it is entirely possible that she has higher Neandertal ancestry than 3.1% of her purported Native American blood. "
Neanderthal quotas right now! And end the anti-neanderthal quips used all too frequently in the media. As a members of this now genocided people we demand monuments to be erected in the honor of my people and inclusion of their history in school curricula.
Neanderthal gender-equal society should be standard fare in women's studies departments, and as the most egregious offenders of using the term for chauvinist males we demand public apology from them. Till kingdom come.
Steve--
”Hence, almost no Republican critics of Warren fathom what exactly she did wrong.”
This guy certainly does.
http://theconservativetreehouse.com/2012/05/08/whoopsie-not-only-was-elizabeth-pocusflauntus-warren-not-an-injun-but-great-great-great-grandpappy-was-an-injun-hunter/
As well digging has seemed to show the ancestors she thinks were Cherokee Amerindians weren’t.
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