How did the controversy about Warren's Native American ancestry begin?

I know, I know, another damn Elizabeth Warren thread. I hear ya but I felt this information had to be put to rest so that maybe we all can move on.

So why is this a topic that is constantly being brought up against Warren? Where did it begin and why does it continue to be discussed to this day? Well, it all began back in 2012 when Warren was running against incumbent Scott Brown for Senate in Massachusetts. Warren wasn't campaigning that she should be elected because she may have Native American heritage nor was she even bragging about it. It all began with the Boston Herald.

Harvard trips on roots of Elizabeth Warren’s family tree

Elizabeth Warren’s avowed Native American heritage — which the candidate rarely if ever discusses on the campaign trail — was once touted by embattled Harvard Law School officials who cited her claim as proof of their faculty’s diversity.

Warren’s claim, which surfaced yesterday after a Herald inquiry, put the candidate in an awkward position as campaign aides last night scrambled but failed to produce documents proving her family lineage. Aides said the tales of Warren’s Cherokee and Delaware tribe ancestors have been passed down through family lore.

“Like most Americans, Elizabeth learned of her heritage through conversations with her grandparents, her parents, and her aunts and uncles,” said Warren’s strategist Kyle Sullivan.

The Ivy League law school prominently touted Warren’s Native American background, however, in an effort to bolster their diversity hiring record in the ’90s as the school came under heavy fire for a faculty that was then predominantly white and male.

“Of 71 current Law School professors and assistant professors, 11 are women, five are black, one is Native American and one is Hispanic,” The Harvard Crimson quotes then-Law School spokesman Mike Chmura as saying in a 1996 article. The Crimson added that 83 percent of the Law School’s students believed the number of minority women on staff was inadequate.

There it is, ground zero for the controversy that is now the hottest trending news topic of today. Now, I'm not going to bash the Boston Herald because they do good work, namely their investigations into the Catholic Churches sex crimes but they are prone to mistakes and in this case produced fake news as seen in paragraphs one and four, stating that Warren used her heritage to gain employment at Harvard. Mistakes are made but this led to her opponent, Brown, to use this information to attack her during his campaign.



This particular election was widely covered, probably due to the fact that the 2012 Presidential election was happening at the same exact time. So with all the media hype over said election and attack ads the national conversation about Warren's heritage and so called misuse of it to gain employment at Harvard was born and obviously continued to this day, by conservatives, most famously by Trump.

But did she use her heritage to get an advantage? Well last year the Boston Globe, not be confused with the Boston Herald, decided to look into this and they discovered that she did not.

Ethnicity not a factor in Elizabeth Warren’s rise in law

CAMBRIDGE — The 60-plus Harvard Law School professors who filed into an auditorium-style room on the first floor of Pound Hall on that February 1993 afternoon had a significant question to answer: Should they offer a job to Elizabeth Warren?

The discussion among Harvard professors inside that room is supposed to remain a secret, but it’s still being dissected a quarter of a century later because the resulting vote set Warren on her way to becoming a national figure and a favored target for conservative critics, among them, notably and caustically, President Trump.

Was Warren on the agenda because, as her critics say, she had decided to self-identify as a Native American woman and Harvard saw a chance to diversify the law faculty? Did she have an unearned edge in a hugely competitive process? Or did she get there based on her own skill, hard work, and sacrifice?

The question, which has hung over Warren’s public life, has an answer.

In the most exhaustive review undertaken of Elizabeth Warren’s professional history, the Globe found clear evidence, in documents and interviews, that her claim to Native American ethnicity was never considered by the Harvard Law faculty, which voted resoundingly to hire her, or by those who hired her to four prior positions at other law schools. At every step of her remarkable rise in the legal profession, the people responsible for hiring her saw her as a white woman.

The Globe examined hundreds of documents, many of them never before available, and reached out to all 52 of the law professors who are still living and were eligible to be in that Pound Hall room at Harvard Law School. Some are Warren’s allies. Others are not. Thirty-one agreed to talk to the Globe — including the law professor who was, at the time, in charge of recruiting minority faculty. Most said they were unaware of her claims to Native American heritage and all but one of the 31 said those claims were not discussed as part of her hire. One professor told the Globe he is unsure whether her heritage came up, but is certain that, if it did, it had no bearing on his vote on Warren’s appointment.

So why is this news of her heritage such big news now? Well, simply, it's because of Republican politicians (mostly Trump) and conservative media/social media outlets who continue to bring it up as an attack. Warren finally gets tested and found out once for and all if she is in fact Native American or not, while also holding Trump accountable to his promise of making a million dollar donation to a charity of her choice.

Warren didn't start this controversy, the media did. Her opponent used it against her and conservatives have been using against her ever since and now that it's proven she does have Native American heritage will Trump and his base finally let it go? Can this stupid political attack be laid to rest?

I doubt it but that's the brief history of this nonsense.

This is the fifth one about her today... but yours is certainly the best.

a reply to: Swills

But she's not Native American... did you miss that part?

/facepalm

Don't forget her submissions to Pow Wow Chow, and native american cookbook.

In 1984, a cousin in Oklahoma asked her to contribute recipes for a cookbook billed as "recipes passed down through the Five Tribes families." The book was entitled Pow Wow Chow.

Warren sent five, and under each one, listed herself as Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.

Given that a cousin asked her to participate, this might lend credence to the notion that at least among her family, a tribal connection was taken for granted.

But it didn’t help that her recipes included one for crab with mayonnaise and another for herbed tomatoes — hardly traditional fare.

And to make matters worse, some of the recipes appear to have been copied from the New York Times wire service.

Politifact

Many white americans have the same amount of african DNA as EW has native american....are al those white people eligible for affirmative action? Can my kids go to Harvard, Yale and get govt. grants like EW?

She did what all Democrats do, tell a flat out lie with a hint of truth.

a reply to: watchandwait410

I know and I’m very sorry.

A





(1/1024 th) of a post.

Counts as a whole one.

a reply to: Lumenari

Well, I think you missed the point I’m making. This wasn’t started by her but she ended it. She does indeed have Native American blood flowing in her veins no matter how thin that blood is. She hasn’t used said ancestry to gain employment at Harvard which has always been the main attack against her.

a reply to: Zoyd23

Did you read the OP? She never used her heritage to gain employment at Hardvard. That’s kinda the whole point of this thread.

originally posted by: Zoyd23
Many white americans have the same amount of african DNA as EW has native american....are al those white people eligible for affirmative action? Can my kids go to Harvard, Yale and get govt. grants like EW?

Actually most have a lot more.

She is claiming 0.003% essentially makes her Cherokee?

That isn't a lineage... it is a statistical anomaly.

For instance, my oldest daughter tested as 1.8% black... her father and I don't have any. Neither does her brother or sisters... otherwise they all match perfectly.

So where did that come from? I have a full 3% that is called unassigned... with my other kids they are calling the 1.8% either unassigned or Western Asian.

So she isn't even in the "probable" envelope.

a reply to: Middleoftheroad

No, she didn’t. Read the OP.

originally posted by: Swills
a reply to: Lumenari

Well, I think you missed the point I’m making. This wasn’t started by her but she ended it. She does indeed have Native American blood flowing in her veins no matter how thin that blood is. She hasn’t used said ancestry to gain employment at Harvard which has always been the main attack against her.

I think you are missing the point that she isn't Native American, by definition.

Unless we are all going to run around calling ourselves Neanderthal now?

You poor people... always trying to prop up a party that doesn't care about you at all.

I do know that AS a Cherokee, I can tell you that she is no more Native American than my cat.

But keep pushing the narrative... and while you are at it, can you text her and ask her to post her CDIB card?

Thanks in advance...

a reply to: Zoyd23prove

Yes, true. America is a melting pot of mutts. My favorite is stories about white supremacists taking a DNA test to prove how white they are only to learn they have African blood coursing through their veins.

a reply to: Swills

But she did, she lied when asked and told the press she had no idea why Harvard thought she was Cherokee and then later admitted she had told Harvard management that she was Cherokee. She flat out lied

originally posted by: avgguy
a reply to: Swills

But she did, she lied when asked and told the press she had no idea why Harvard thought she was Cherokee and then later admitted she had told Harvard management that she was Cherokee. She flat out lied

You are not supposed to bring that up because a Democratic woman is always right and innocent of anything.

Especially apples.

a reply to: Lumenari

Again, you’re missing the point. This all began with the Boston Herald and Warren’s own family telling their children of their Native American heritage going back generations. Just because that was a very long time ago doesn’t diminish the fact she had Native American great great great grandparents.

With lying

Harvard Law School in the 1990s touted Warren, then a professor in Cambridge, as being "Native American." They singled her out, Warren later acknowledged, because she had listed herself as a minority in an Association of American Law Schools directory.

Bold part mine for emphasis
That was against Federal Law
Question answered

Quoted from CNN for those that only trust CNN
(The accidentally put that part in)

Here's The Deal

a reply to: avgguy

Well, this I didn’t find during my quick research into this nonsense so feel free to provide valid sources. They are welcome!

If true, it doesn’t take away from much of anything. I mean, if she did tell a lie does that mean she must be crucified because if that’s the standard then all politicians, Trump most definitely included, must begin their journey of carrying their own cross through their own twelve stations.

a reply to: Lumenari

She is claiming 0.003% essentially makes her Cherokee?

$100 in a savings account earning .003% = Jacksnip $$