The Globe has today’s big story on the apparently never-ending saga of Elizabeth Warren’s heritage.
Democratic Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren acknowledged for the first time late Wednesday night that she told Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania that she was Native American, but she continued to insist that race played no role in her recruitment.
“At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,” she said in a statement issued by her campaign. “My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it.” …
Asked how the issue first came up or how she first reported herself as a minority, she said, “But that’s what I’m trying to say – there was no, there is no reporting for this. It came up in lunch conversation once with faculty, after the fact.”
So, OK. I mean, obviously someone had informed Harvard of Warren’s claim to being Native American at some point, since it’s been well known for weeks that Harvard began publicly touting that fact in 1996, a year after she got tenure there. And it certainly stands to reason that the person most likely to have done so is Warren herself. Now we know that’s the case.
I continue to find it almost inconceivable that, if the Harvard administration knew of Warren’s claim to Native American heritage, that fact would not have been loudly proclaimed at the time she became a tenured faculty member. And, as I’ve shown, there is absolutely no evidence that that happened. Indeed, today’s Globe story agrees with that:
Two key people who recruited her to Harvard have said they did not know of her purported heritage or take it into account when hiring her. The school did not promote her as a Native American when she was hired, despite the fact that it was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty with more minorities.
However, today’s story does pose a bit of a head-scratcher:
[T]he university’s law school began reporting a Native American female professor in federal statistics for the 1992-93 school year, the first year Warren worked at Harvard, as a visiting professor…. The Harvard records do not list a Native American during the years Warren returned to her post at the University of Pennsylvania, but begin to list one in 1995-96, when she returned to Cambridge as a tenured professor.
That certainly suggests that someone at Harvard was aware of Warren’s claim to Native American heritage in 1993, well before Warren was tenured. And Charles Fried, the Republican former Solicitor General who was heavily involved in recruiting Warren to Harvard, acknowledged the peculiarity.
Professor Charles Fried, who sat on the committee that recruited Warren, reiterated to the Globe on Wednesday that he was unaware of Warren’s minority status when she was hired. He said that the committee never discussed it and that he does not consult the legal directory in which Warren had listed herself as a minority.
However, Fried acknowledged Wednesday to the Globe, it seemed strange that the issue of her heritage would not come up during the hiring process since she was recruited in the early 1990s, when the school was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty.
Fried added that he learned of Warren’s purported heritage only later, when he visited her home during a party and asked her about a family picture.
Now, large universities like Harvard are intensely bureaucratic places. So it is certainly possible that the right hand simply did not know what the left hand was doing. The folks responsible for reporting federally-mandated diversity statistics to the Department of Labor are assuredly not the same people responsible for making hiring decisions at the law school, and they may well have been ships passing in the night on this issue. And there’s still the weirdness of Harvard’s saying nothing publicly about Warren’s heritage when they hired her in 1995.
And yet, new details like these leave room for continued doubts about whether there aren’t further details yet to emerge about this. One has a hard time disagreeing with the assessment of the slightly-left-leaning folks at WaPo’s The Fix:
Again, Warren has approached this controversy in all the wrong ways, giving confusing and inconsistent answers that only served to draw out the story. While numerous officials have come forward to affirm that Warren’s ancestry was irrelevant in her hiring, her inability (until now) to explain why she was listed as a minority at all has made her appear to be less than forthright about her past.
Or, more concisely, as The Fix opined on Twitter:
Is it possible that Elizabeth Warren could have handled this Native American thing worse? Answer: No.
One final observation: today’s Globe article is pretty substantial new information on this ongoing story, yet as of now, there is absolutely no mention of it at the Herald. Amazing, really – an important development in a story that the Herald itself broke, and the Herald won’t cover it because it showed up in the other paper. Pathetic, no?
UPDATE: Here is the text of a statement released by the Warren campaign (email, no link):
David,
When I was a little girl, I learned about my family’s heritage the same way everyone else does — from my parents and grandparents.
My mother, grandmother, and aunts were open about my family’s Native American heritage, and I never had any reason to doubt them. What kid asks their grandparents for legal documentation to go along with their family stories? What kid asks their mother for proof in how she describes herself?
My heritage is a part of who I am — and I am proud of it.
But that’s not good enough for Scott Brown and the Republican Party. For several weeks now, they have orchestrated an attack against my family, my job qualifications, and my character. Earlier today, Scott Brown even questioned the honesty of my parents — even though they are not fair game and are not here to defend themselves.
Scott Brown wants me to give up my family and forget where I came from. I’m not doing that — not for politics and not for anything else. I’ll hold on to every memory I can. My family is part of who I am, and they will be part of who I am until I die.
Despite evidence to the contrary, Scott Brown also claims I got special breaks because of my background. That’s not true, and I need your help to fight back:
- The people involved in recruiting and hiring me for my teaching jobs, including Harvard professor Charles Fried — the solicitor-general under Ronald Reagan and a Scott Brown voter in 2010 — have said unequivocally they were not aware of my heritage and that it played no role in my hiring.
- I did not benefit from my heritage when applying to college or law school, and documents reporters have examined prove it.
- I let people know about my Native American heritage in a national directory of law school personnel. At some point after they hired me, I also provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard.
I decided to run for the U.S. Senate because the middle class in this country has been hacked at and hammered at and because Washington doesn’t get it.
Scott Brown has a very different vision about who we are as a people, and he votes to make sure the levers of power in Washington continue to work for the big, the powerful and the wealthy.
If everyone in Massachusetts knew where Scott Brown stands on the important issues, voters wouldn’t give him a second term in the U.S. Senate. You know that, I know that, and he knows that, too.
That’s why he has worked so hard to make this campaign about anything else — even my heritage. It’s why his campaign spends so little time on what Massachusetts voters are really concerned about.
On Election Day, we will prevail because our vision is clearer and our ideas are stronger. We are focused on the issues important to middle class families, and our grassroots team will make sure everyone knows about those issues. I need your help to keep fighting the smears, spread the truth, and help us organize to win.
Thank you for being a part of this,
Elizabeth
bluemaxxx says
The truth here is a good first step, but in order to know if she really only mentioned it AFTER being hired she has to release her applications and related docs from Harvard and Penn.
As the Globe reports:
This is crucial to knowing if EW told the truth or claimed to be a minority to get ahead.
John Tehan says
This is a non-issue – we have bigger fish to fry, and you’re doing your candidate no favors with your constant blather about it. Unless you’re actually a Brown supporter, pretending to be a DeFranco supporter…
michaelhoran says
Good god. I wouldn’t care if someone DID use this as means of advancement, which is no different than taking advantage of tax loopholes, which, presumably, nearly everyone does. That’s why they have the damn boxes on the applications. If there’s a problem, it’s with the system. Challenge that and not a job applicant doing just what she’s asked.
Warren has done what her GOP opponents, Senate rival, and scandal-starved press have asked. They can all make what hay they still can with this, but there are no more relevant questions.
This would have been an interesting couple of weeks if the press and partisans within the Party had focused on positions on issues and policy that distinguish a strong front-runner from a surprise dark horse in the pre-primary, but instead, we’ve all allowed ourselves to be dragged into some pretty thick muck. Very disappointing all around.
ChiliPepr says
Ok, while I believe this whole issue is a big non-issue, and just an innocent mistake by Warren. I do have a problem with your statement:
“I wouldn’t care if someone DID use this as means of advancement, which is no different than taking advantage of tax loopholes, which, presumably, nearly everyone does.”
Sorry, but using a tax loophole is a completely legal act, using minority status that you do not have as a means to advancement is immoral and would be grounds for firing.
What would we all be saying if a white republican had run a construction company that got a significant amount of work because he claimed to be a minority “due to family lore”.
David says
She didn’t just send in an “application” to teach at Harvard out of the blue – that’s not how it works. She was recruited; she met with people; they invited her; she gave a talk; there were more conservations; etc. If she ever had to fill out some sort of human resources form, she probably did so long after the major decisions were made about hiring her.
dont-get-cute says
Exactly, they are hired through networking and cocktail parties, perhaps some more formal interviews, and recommendations and reputation. Perhaps they have minimum standards such that they have to have a JD or taught at another law school, but that’s a low bar. The question is how do they choose from the hundreds of qualified people out there to fill one slot, do they take into account the diversity of their faculty? Yes, we know they do, they were under pressure to, and they did, but in a way that was fraudulent in spirit if not in law.
David says
False.
dont-get-cute says
We certainly know that they were under pressure to hire more women and minorities, not more white guys. We know that they did hire more women and minorities, and Elizabeth Warren was touted as both a woman and as a Native American. Is any of that false? She is not actually a Native American, so touting her as a person of color is fraudulent. And if they really thought she was Native American, if they thought it was appropriate to tout her as Native American, they would have done so when they gave her tenure. The fact that they didn’t indicates that they knew it was a fish tale.
methuenprogressive says
She believed what her parents told her about her heritage. Is that really an important reason for you to support her opponents?
Ryan says
whosmindingdemint says
release the secret wall street donor list now (exclamation x 3)
SomervilleTom says
I’m literally NAUSEATED by the fact that our media outlets are talking about this trivial shit and NOT talking about the real issues facing us.
During the time that Elizabeth Warren has been fighting to provide a LITTLE BIT of protection to consumers, Scott Brown has been voting in virtual lockstep with the GOP to obstruct votes and therefore paralyze the federal government. One candidate strives to move ahead, the other strives to block progress.
We are seeing the effects of unrestricted corporate spending as “political speech”. The Globe is struggling, and sees how much the big-money backers of Scott Brown and the GOP are bringing to the table. No responsible editor would allow this “story” to continue to run.
If there is ANYTHING here, it is to explore the connections — personal and financial — that join Mr. Fehrnstromm and his minions to the media coverage of this “issue”.
methuenprogressive says
She needs to respond to the hacks nagging her: “Do you believe what your parents told you, too?”
bostonshepherd says
The means justify the ends. Lying and obfuscating to the voters is OK as long as she’s doing our political policy bidding.
Ryan says
I suppose your parents and grandparents NEVER told you anything about your family history, which you believed, but didn’t end up being true?
You know, for the entirety of my life, I grew up knowing that my great-grandfather was off-the-boat Irish.
Over just the past month, as my mother has been doing genealogical research, I’ve come to discover that my great grandfather wasn’t off-the-boat Irish.
He came here from Newfoundland and was a generation or two removed from Ireland. It was a complete shock to me and my mother, and this was from a man who she knew until he died at the age of 92.
She knew he had family in Newfoundland, but he didn’t like to talk about it, so the ‘lore’ that was passed down was that several of his family members came here from Ireland, too, but their ship had troubles and they had to stop in Canada and never made it farther.
That was literally the family story!
Would I have been lying if I told people that story for the bulk of my life?
Or would I just have been misinformed?
We don’t know whether or not Elizabeth Warren has been misinformed, but she’s certainly not lying.
nopolitician says
Growing up, I told people that I was part French. That is what my parents told me, what my grandmother told me. So naturally, I told people that my ancestors came to the US from France.
Turns out that wasn’t quite true. My ancestors were French-Canadien. My ancestors came to Canada from France, and then to the US from Canada.
There was no way to check this stuff back then. It’s still not easy, especially with the variation in spelling of French names and the fact that people didn’t even know how to spell their own names back then. Heck, I still have a set of relatives, all with the same grandfather, spelling their last names 3 different ways.
Scott Brown is disgusting. Every time he says “Elizabeth Warren should tell the truth”, he is calling her a liar. He’s using birther tactics on her and no one is calling him on it. And every day that he is allowed to do this, he avoids talking about the real issues that this campaign should be about.
oceandreams says
I’m still wondering how her heritage should be some kind of big voter concern, unless she purposely lied about it in order to get an unfair employment advantage. Otherwise, I. Don’t. Care. (For that matter, I don’t really care that Ann Romney rides horses, another bizarre page one choice, this time by Globe sister paper the NY Times, although at least they only ran with that once.)
As a voter, Scott Brown claiming to be a “moderate” while voting for the Blunt amendment — something that would have allowed an employer to deny health care coverage for *anything at all* they claimed a “moral objection” to — is considerably more important to me.
Ryan says
I can think of some stupid stories lingering on in the media, but nothing so stupid for so long.
It’s simply astounding, and pathetic — for the media.
I even expect more from the Herald… it’s no secret that they’re a tabloid that’s in the tank for Republicans, but can’t they at least get some fresh material? For heaven’s sake, this is beyond the point of merely being crappy journalism…. it’s boring.
oceandreams says
There is no reasonable evidence that Elizabeth Warren lied about Native American heritage *and* received clear, unfair employment advantage as a result. Both of these points would need to be true for this to be any kind of ‘story.’ Neither are even close to being proven. Yet the Globe continues to pound this out on its front page day after day. At this point media consumers who possess engage in even a modest level of political thought, regardless of political point of view, have got to be wondering why this is being given such a high level of coverage.
This is embarrassing for the media and our political system, not for Elizabeth.
whosmindingdemint says
3 midle-aged white guys whose biggest gripe in life is that they were not born with trust funds.
Seriously.
nopolitician says
According to the Springfield Republican, “A group of protesters led by Cherokee Indians upset about Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren’s heritage claims are planning to protest outside the state Democratic Convention in Springfield on Saturday. ”
I’d love to see the money trail behind that one come out, because you know that in some way it is going to be tied to either Brown’s campaign, Eric Fehnstrom, or another group that coordinated with them.
It would be interested to start grilling Brown about his involvement in this issue to watch him do the bob and weave.
whosmindingdemint says
and not just the Tea Pahty
Charley on the MTA says
did dress up as “Indians”.
whosmindingdemint says
4 midle-aged white guys whose biggest gripe in life is that they were not born with trust funds.
johnd says
Really? Maybe Bostonsheperd is a trust fund baby…how do you know?
whosmindingdemint says
.
dont-get-cute says
Because at the time of the announcement, with the attention (and the cameras) entirely on her, people would have scoffed if they said that she was a minority. It was newsworthy enough at the time of the announcement for her to be a woman, and if they had tried to say that this very white woman was a minority too, it would have gotten in the way of the story that they had hired a woman and made the whole thing a farce. But when the spotlight isn’t on her and they are just touting the diversity of the faculty as a whole, then they can get away with saying there is a Native American because no one is going to dispute it.
Ryan says
or that 9/11 was fake?
or that tin foil is a fashion accessory?
John Tehan says
In DGC’s world, tin-foil isn’t a fashion accessory – but it does make a wonderful hat!
David says
.
lynne says
nt
Ryan says
It seems like stuff we’ve known about for weeks…
Certainly, it was covered in the mass email she sent out that Christopher posted.
David says
that she has acknowledged that she indeed passed information about her heritage along to Harvard and UPenn.
Like I said in the post, it’s always been pretty obvious that she must have done so at some point, but this is the first time she’s said it out loud.
johnd says
Up till now she has refused to directly answer the question of inferred Harvard did it. When I posted this back on May 1st http://vps28478.inmotionhosting.com/~bluema24/2012/05/elizabeth-warren-claims-minority-status-as-native-american/ many people thought is was a non-story but I guess it has become quite the story. Too bad she didn’t release her answer back then, maybe it would have spared her so much embarrassment.
Will people never learn that often times it’s not the crime it’s the coverup.
whosmindingdemint says
Cutey is following me.
I keep turning left there, buddy.
judy-meredith says
with a clarifying comment in a conversation or blog about this Cherokee stuff ever again.
Not on BMG especially. She screwed up period, it’s over. She’ll recover. Nobody else cares about this except our opponents who are only trying to, excuse me, are successfully depleting our natural political juices by venting our spleen on this blog and then venting spleen again to respond indignantly to the opponents comments to their venting.
Not with my indignant brother who has responded by sending Elizabeth more money (well maybe him)
Deep breaths people. You are all smart and savvy people desperately needed on the campaign. We could use a lively primary to channel our positive energy.
David says
nt
lynne says
Depends on your definition of “lively” if you ask me. Circular firing squads are lively but I wouldn’t want to be in one.
farnkoff says
This is the whole problem, and the only problem, as far as I can tell. And most of her supporters seem hell-bent on denying she did anything improper or made any mistake. We don’t need to pretend our candidate is perfect, but this is the trap some of us seem to have fallen into, getting enraged at the mere suggestion that there was any error at all (“McGrory’s in on the conspiracy!” “Marisa DeFranco’s an evil witch working for Brown!” and things of that nature, or implying such). BMG is at its best when it is truly “reality-based”, and reality does not preclude an imperfect Warren.
SomervilleTom says
It’s a distraction. It doesn’t matter. If you make the mistake of playing Three-Card Monte with a street con, you will lose your money. No matter how hard you try and follow the card, you will lose.
Eric Fehrnstromm is inviting us to play Scott Brown’s Three Card Monte game, with the media as shills (and perhaps some other public figures mixed in).
JUST SAY “NO”!
oceandreams says
even if she did ‘screw up,’ and I’m seriously not convinced she did, I wouldn’t care. Any of us who voted for Ted Kennedy over the years for that seat clearly would not rule out a candidate based on transgressions in his/her personal life.
bean says
All one accomplishes is preventing the Democratic party from engaging fully against Brown until fall.
Mark L. Bail says
doesn’t matter. I know recent polls suggest otherwise, but if this issue is still kicking around in August, it will be trouble. I personally believe that someone at Harvard did something bureaucratic that led to the Law School claiming her as a minority, as David has suggested. But there’s no evidence.
I’ve been trying to figure out how she should have responded. I now think that she should have started by saying that she shouldn’t have to choose between her heritage and running for senator. She shouldn’t have to believe her mother was a liar because Scott Brown wants to make her heritage a campaign issue. It’s irrelevant and unfair to the electorate. What Harvard had nothing to do with her.
David says
I think the statement she released today (appended to my post) is pretty good. The problem is the timing: it, or something like it, should have been released weeks ago, right after the Herald’s first story.
dont-get-cute says
Doesn’t that word “open” imply it was something that they had reason to be ashamed about? Now, perhaps at the time she was growing up, during the racist 50’s and 60’s, people still did hide any non-white ancestors from their children and friends, and so being “open” about it and proud of it was unusual and new, an emerging trend. But now, today, it is a strange word to continue to use, and it’s strange to continue to say that she is proud of her heritage as if anyone today is thinking it was not something to be proud of. Why didn’t she just say “My parents told me I was part-Cherokee and I believed them?” Why focus on how her parents were “open” and how she is proud? She’s introducing racism to the discussion in a very racist way, as if she still thinks it matters to people. No one cares about her heritage or ancestry at all, and certainly no one thinks anyone’s ancestry is something to be proud or not proud about. The past may be prologue, but no one reads the prologue. The outrage is about her sense of entitlement and her self-righteousness and willingness to take advantage of minority hiring preferences even though she’s NOT A MINORITY.
bluhooey says
The Oklahoma Heritage Hall of Fame elected Elizabeth Warren to membership in 2011. Their website provides a biography which states “Warren, who can track both sides of her family in Oklahoma long before statehood…”. http://www.oklahomaheritage.com/Portals/0/docs/Elizabeth%20Warren.pdf
For many weeks now, we have heard the oft repeated story of Aunt Bea and PoPa, as Elizabeth has played dumb.
And today, David provides us with (courtesy of the Warren Campaign)
“When I was a little girl, I learned about my family’s heritage the same way everyone else does — from my parents and grandparents.
My mother, grandmother, and aunts were open about my family’s Native American heritage, and I never had any reason to doubt them. What kid asks their grandparents for legal documentation to go along with their family stories? What kid asks their mother for proof in how she describes herself?”
If she could track both sides of her family long before statehood in 2011, why this pretense of family stories in 2012?
Christopher says
…to have family stories and be able to track an ancestry? The stories almost certainly have some basis in fact. As an Oklahoman I’m not the least bit surprised that she has Cherokee ancestry. After all, Oklahoma was designated by the US as Indian Territory and did not become a state until relatively late.
The campaign has now twice sent emails about this, one I have posted, one David posted. The claim is as solid as anyone’s to their ancestry and the current Chief is only 1/32 Cherokee himself from what I understand. I would submit at this point that anyone who continues to question her lineage is now officially a birther and ought to be treated with appropriate combination of contempt and mockery. It’s not as if she is claiming to be next in line to be Chief by virtue of primogeniture.
bluhooey says
and knew there was no evidence of Cherokee ancestry. She is an educated woman, not a country bumpkin. She elected to assume an undeserved status. The Crawford line has been traced back 188 years with no Cherokee family members. The current chief has 6 Cherokee links, she has zero.
Your comment “I would submit at this point that anyone who continues to question her lineage is now officially a birther and ought to be treated with appropriate combination of contempt and mockery.” is absurd. Elizabeth Warren is the subject of mockery across this Nation for her refusal to even discuss her heritage, and has earned the contempt of many true Native Americans for usurping their birthright..
sethjp says
Just because someone is being mocked doesn’t mean that they’ve done anything wrong. President Obama is the subject of mockery across the nation, as well. Of course the people mocking him are birthers and other right wing extremists whose opinions aren’t worth wasting an iota of mental energy considering. Much the same can be said of the folks “mocking” Warren.
Disagree with her on the issues? Fine. Think that she’s handled this distraction poorly? I agree. But let’s not pretend for even one instant that this is the issue that we should be basing our electoral decisions on. It makes us all dumber by the minute.
whosmindingdemint says
exactly?
Christopher says
…and can you prove it beyond a reasonable doubt? I know my last name is Welsh and on my mother’s side we tout our Scottish clan connections (Fraser of Lovett, with possible royal connections). Can I prove it with documentation right this second? No, but why should I doubt what I hear from older generations of my family who in turn heard when they were younger from previous generations. I stand by the comment you labled absurd. You are a birther and a troll and should expend your energy writing a diary about whom you do support and why. Even if she checked a box she shouldn’t have she’s still best qualified to be Senator and the burden is on you to prove she is not who she says she is, but again this falls into the category of so what if the President were a Muslim.
bluhooey says
You brought up the terms mockery, contempt and birthers…and now my ancestry and trolls. Elizabeth Warren appears unable to carry on a rational discussion, and can only mouth talking points incessantly. You think she is qualified for office EVEN IF she has committed ethnic fraud. LOL
whosmindingdemint says
How many grandmothers does Mitt Romney have, exactly?
whosmindingdemint says
Mitt Romney’s great-great-grandfather was Parley Pratt, a Mormon apostle who had twelve wives. His great-grandparents were polygamous Mormons who moved to Mexico because of U.S. anti-polygamy laws. Miles Park Romney had five wives—including one taken in 1897, more than six years after the “Manifesto” supposedly announcing a ban on plural marriage in the LDS Church.
Left apple pie and fair play for…sunny Mexico? I guess for anyone else this would be flight to avoid prosecution, but for Romney, well…
Christopher says
Her statements are coherent, though I dissent from those who say, even on our side, that she had to respond at all. My own quality may have gone down a bit, which tends to happen when I get as royally ticked off as I am about this manufactured controversy. Yes, checking a box umpteen years ago, even if she shouldn’t have, does not detract from her skill sets, expertise, and voting record she will bring to the Senate. You may end your comment with LOL, but I’m only laughing at you, certainly not at the real issues in this campaign that affect peoples lives. My bringing up your ancestry was perfectly legit. You seem to think these things are instantly provable and I admitted I couldn’t do it for myself. All I’m saying is put up or shut up.
jconway says
The past 49 posts have been completely irrelevant to the future of Massachusetts, our economy, jobs, and the middle class. Everyday Warren talks about this is a day she is not talking about the future of Massachusetts, our economy, jobs, and the middle class. Everyday the media talks about this is a day they are not talking about Browns record on our economy, jobs, and the middle class-in effect giving him a pass. Warren should have killed this months ago with a quick apology and full disclosure. Everyday she continues to hem and haw on this and talk about this is a day not spent talking about the economy, jobs, and the middle class. I challenge Warren, her team, and BMG and her progressive allies to STOP talking about bullshit and START talking about the economy, jobs, and the middle class. Those three things need to be hit in every future press release from Warren. Lets just stop talking about this issue, believe it or not its the way to make it go away (see Bush drunk driving incident, Clinton after finally admitting to the BJ, etc.).
whosmindingdemint says
and we’ll stop talking about it.
whosmindingdemint says
Let’s talk about Mitt’s heritage shall we? It might shed some light on the efficacy of blaming folks for the misguided notions of their forebears.