Today’s Globe has a front-page story on how Elizabeth Warren got to where she is today. It’s a very interesting read, both in a big-picture sense (it’s an interesting story), and in that it does a nice job of addressing some specific right-wing talking points about Warren.
I’m not going to summarize the piece – you should go read the whole thing. But I want to point out a couple of things that struck me.
- She’s tough, ambitious, and has probably pissed some people off along the way. The story is pretty clear on this point.
[A wide range of professors and administrators interviewed by the Globe] said Warren rose through the mostly male, intensely political world of academia on the strength of her unbridled — to some, off-putting — ambition as well as groundbreaking research that brought her national attention and grant money…. Behind the scenes, some of her peers bristled at her ascent, viewing her as smart and capable but also as a climber with sharp elbows…. As Warren’s career took root, however, her marriage was unraveling. The Oklahoma teenager Jim Warren had married had turned into a hard-charging professor whose priorities, she said, did not include having a home-cooked dinner on the table each night…. Warren was growing restless at a university [the University of Houston] without much national clout…. “She was, in many ways, almost the most ambitious single person on that faculty at that point,” [UPenn law professor Colin] Diver said. “And that’s saying something.”
Here’s the point, made by University of Chicago law professor Douglas Baird – an eminent bankruptcy law scholar whose approach to bankruptcy could hardly be further from Warren’s (he’s a hardcore law and economics guy, she’s an empiricist who rejects law and economics as “seductively oversimplified, an abstract theory with no grounding in reality”):
Baird, the Chicago law professor who was once Warren’s sparring partner, said: “To the extent that people criticize Elizabeth for having sharp elbows, that was at a time where, if you were a woman who didn’t have sharp elbows, you were going to be run over.”
I have some personal experience with this sort of thing. I was a law clerk for former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, whose “first woman to ever…” list is so long that I can’t even remember everything that’s on it. She’s an extraordinary person for whom I am deeply honored to have worked. But let’s be clear about this: she’s probably the toughest person I’ve ever met, and she was never short on ambition. It’s no accident that people who shatter barriers tend to be the types who aren’t afraid to break a few eggs on the way to making an omelet.
So to those who think Elizabeth Warren is too ambitious, or too strident, or too whatever, I say this: that’s exactly what I want in a Senator. I want someone who is not afraid of standing up existing power structures because she thinks they are biased toward the already-powerful at the expense of others. I want someone who will make waves when waves need to be made. I want someone who doesn’t see bipartisanship as an end in itself if the folks on the other side are simply wrong (I’ve written several times that I think bipartisanship for its own sake is just a fetish, though a widely-practiced one among the punditocracy). I want a fighter. There’s really no doubt who that is in this Senate race.
- The end of Cherokee-gate. The Globe story effectively demolishes the myth that Warren tried to get ahead in the academic world by claiming Native American heritage. According to the story, “in two dozen interviews with the Globe, a wide range of professors and administrators who recruited or worked with Warren said her ethnic background played no role in her hiring.” And several academics went on the record to say that they had no idea of Warren’s heritage. One found the notion laughable:
Robert H. Mundheim, the dean who hired Warren at Penn, laughed when asked whether he thought of her as a minority.
“Somebody who’s got a small percentage of Native American blood — is that a minority?” he said. “I don’t think I ever knew that she had those attributes and that would not have made much of a difference.”
At the time, elite East Coast law schools were facing protests from minority students and activists who wanted them to diversify their faculty. But they were not on the lookout for Native American scholars, said Colin S. Diver, who succeeded Mundheim as dean at Penn Law during Warren’s time there.
“In Philadelphia and Cambridge, what mattered was African-American and Latino,” Diver said. “That’s where the pressure was coming … and that’s what you meant when you said ‘students of color.’”
Whether or not considerations like those should play into law school faculty hiring decisions is a topic for another day. The relevant point here is that it’s quite clear that, in Warren’s case, they did not (as I have already demonstrated in the case of Harvard). End of story.
- Misconduct? No. The Globe also discusses a story that the Breitbart gang is particularly fond of, namely, the accusations of a now-deceased law professor at Rutgers (Warren’s alma mater, ironically), Philip Shuchman, that Warren and her colleagues had committed “scientific misconduct” in some of their bankruptcy research. It is well-known that two independent inquiries cleared Warren and her colleagues, as the Globe notes:
Shuchman’s charges were dismissed by both the university [of Texas] and the National Science Foundation.
The University of Texas’s investigation determined that Warren and her coauthors did not engage in scientific misconduct and “their behavior demonstrates the highest ethical standards.” The National Science Foundation also found there was no misconduct and said Shuchman’s complaints amounted to the kind of scholarly dispute best handled in academic journals.
The Globe adds some useful context by outlining exactly what it was that Shuchman was complaining about:
Writing in the Rutgers Law Review in 1990, he accused Sullivan, Warren, and Westbrook of “repeated instances of scientific misconduct,” for failing to make their raw data available to him so he could replicate their findings and verify their accuracy, a standard procedure in the academic world. In his review and in a 60-page complaint to the National Science Foundation, he also alleged that the authors exaggerated the originality of their work by failing to credit others.
Shuchman’s charges were grave, akin to academic fraud, and prompted the University of Texas and National Science Foundation to launch investigations.
Warren and her collaborators told investigators that they had offered Shuchman a complete list of the cases they sampled, but without the debtors’ names and court file numbers, since that information was never entered into their database. They said they had an agreement with the National Science Foundation to exclude such information, to protect the debtors’ privacy.
Sullivan also said they credited Shuchman in their book, calling him a “pioneer” in the field of bankruptcy research, but did not cite much of his work because it was unsupported by data, disproved by other studies, or wrong.
I’m not one to speak ill of the dead, and Shuchman is no longer around to explain exactly what it was that he was complaining about. Let’s just suffice it to say that, if the Globe’s description is accurate, I’m not losing any sleep over whether the two inquiries that cleared Warren and her colleagues were some sort of whitewash, as the Breitbart crowd would have you believe.
- Dr. Phil. When you’re done with the Globe story, you should check out David Bernstein’s piece from earlier this year that discusses Warren’s “Dr. Phil” years. Warren was a regular guest on the immensely popular Dr. Phil show from 2003-2005 (she joined the Harvard faculty in 1995) talking about exactly what you would expect: financial issues that affect regular middle-class folk. According to Bernstein, “[a]t the time, she says, not all of her colleagues in the hallowed halls of academia were quite so impressed with her new direction. Many looked down their noses at her TV exploits.” That’s not hard to imagine; one doubts that the Harvard Law faculty boasts too many regular Dr. Phil watchers. But it’s easy to imagine that Warren’s experience with the Dr. Phil audience – likely quite different from the audiences she was used to in law schools and in government hearing rooms – is a big part of why she’s been so remarkably successful for a first-time political candidate.
…and because the Dems are banking on a “base” strategy, rather than persuading swing vote–which clearly is Brown’s plan–apparently no one want to acknowledge the fact that Warren was a registered Republican from 1991 to ’96 and refuses to say if she voted for Ronald Reagan or not…which infers that she did.
As someone who desperately wants Warren to win, I will embrace and celebrate these facts. Frankly I think the base will vote and be motivated for Warren regardless that she was once a Republican. I understand the base vote strategy, especially if the GOTV efforts are similar to last cycle (and from everything I’m seen, it will be stronger), but I think the Warren camp should “buy a hedge” and embrace her past Republican tendencies so she has a better shot at converting some of the swing voters.
Frankly I think the Dems for Brown ads and the “I call’m as I see’m” ads of Brown are damn good. I’d love to see a counter balance from the Warren camp…her looking into the camera…”I was once a Republican (I even voted for Reagan), but as I saw their policies shift and hurt the middle class, I could make that shift…so now I/m a Democratic…still working for the Middle Class”
Brown and Warren have got plenty of money for ads and funneling some of that money to present a fuller–and more accurate–portrait of Warren would be wish.
…is the number of times I’ve heard him invoked favorably by progressives in recent months!
This is not the bio of a Harvard Law professor. I don’t know what that means, but I have been all over their web page and it’s definitely one of a kind. I might go to Mass School of Law and then see if I can get a job there.
She was hired as a trailing spouse at Penn. Is she ashamed of that? Why does the story gloss over that.
You can say “End of Story” to the whole Cherokee business but that will be up to the voters. If it’s so “laughable” then why did she do it? Why did her employers report it? No one has answered that question.
She was a Republican until she started working in a place where that wasn’t fashionable.
This “trailing spouse” crap is just part of the smear campaign the right is trying to construct. Obviously you haven’t read the article. In fact, if there was a “trailing spouse” it was her husband, who follow Warren to Harvard.
Can you provide any “evidence” that she was a “trailing spouse”…put up or shut up.
Obviously … though if the polls are to be believed, they’ve already weighed in pretty strongly.
Let’s go through it. My helpful annotations are in italics.
You’re usually one of our better differently-winged contributors; this is a disappointing departure from that. I’ll chalk it up to something you ate.
ALL of the Harvard Law school faculty have gold plated (top 10 or higher) educational pedigrees. Except Warren. Find me another person on that faculty with even remotely a similar background.
So Penn simultaneously wanted the Mann and Warren? I don’t buy it. In 1987 Mann (according to a Penn website) was the star in that family.
So we’re buying her “to meet other people” statement regarding the law directory and Harvard’s vague bureaucratic ramblings?
I had put this to bed myself until your comments. I appreciate your nice thoughts but you are an exception on your own blog. Most people here take exception to every letter this keyboard types. You are somewhat more balanced but you are still rooted in your biases, you’re just a better writer. When you say
I read “good thing she’s running in MA, because she wouldn’t have a prayer in most other states.” Do you think she’d be okay in NJ/NY with all that financial services bashing? Would she be okay in a purple state? Obviously she’d have no chance in her other adopted states, TX and OK.
So everyone can bash away. I only bring up a couple flaws that apparently are invisible here, and I bring up once again that it seems an issue that everyone loves the Globe when they agree with it, and hates it when they don’t.
All of the following HLS faculty (not lecturers) have at least one not-top-10 degree, so far as I could tell. Keep in mind that the majority of folks listed in the faculty directory are lecturers, and therefore aren’t in this list. To be clear, most of the folks below had not-top-ten undergrad but top-10 law, but that doesn’t change the fact that your claim is just plain balderdash. This is just S-Z, and also excludes professors who don’t have their education listed.
Mikhail Xifaras
Paul C. Weiler
Roberto Mangabeira Unger
Ronald S. Sullivan
Michael Ashley Stein
Jane Stapleton
Robert H. Sitkoff
Joseph William Singer
Stephen E. Shay
Steven M. Shavell
Amartya Kumar Sen
Adiel Schremer
Lewis D. Sargentich
Benjamin Sachs
sachs- yale law
sargentich- harvard law
schremer- hebrew (he’s a visting)
sen- trinity college cambridge
shay- columbia
also maybe some of them didn’t go to Ivy UG, but none of their US education is at the likes of the Univ of Houston
and the list goes on
Warren RUTGERS SCHOOL OF LAW
“Fish in a barrel” means “can’t miss” and you just did,
With your comment on the left leaning Boston Globe being loved/hated here… spot on.
With EW being sub-par compared to the rest of HLS’s faculty… spot on.
Stomv stepped on a land mine there. I also agree that David was far too tartan in his support of EW and is far too willing to look the other way for the people he supports. I do it too but this is a case of it happening.
She’s a nobody who has gone from unimportant Prof at Harvard, picked up by Obama for a job which he couldn’t even get her confirmed at and now she’s running for US Senator as her first elected position.
Her Native American story is total bull and most here would devour a Republican with a similar story. Sorry you guys are too tribal to admit it.
While MG and JohnD flog the absurd claim that Elizabeth Warren is some kind of affirmative-action hire, the voters will make their own decision. I have no doubt that some voters will be swayed by such unadulterated crap. I also have no doubt that those voters already chose to support Scott Brown long ago.
These continuing and baseless attacks on Elizabeth Warren — in the face of compelling evidence to the contrary — make it easier for truly undecided voters to see what truly motivates the “base” of Scott Brown.
Mr. Brown’s eagerness to promote such hogwash will only hurt him.
And we live with whatever they decide.
Obama won, I’ll live with it. The GOP took back the House in 2010, you’ll live with it, 2012 could bring the Senate back to the GOP or maybe even the POTUS. You and I will have to live with it.
I strongly believe in the voters getting what they want, but three indicted Speakers of the House in MA show that sometimes the voters get even more than they want.
PS Your zeal is showing using words like “baseless” “unadulterated” and “hogwash” when in fact there is much of EW that we know to be true and other stuff which she has not proven to be false (since we are in the new BMG/Democrat era of needing proof of a false statement.
You did NOT write “gold plated (top 10 or higher) law school pedigrees.” You wrote educational pedigrees. Surely that includes undergraduate. You also wrote “ALL” which means all I’ve got to do to prove your statement wrong is find “any”.
Had you written “a not-top-10 law degree is exceedingly rare on the Harvard Law faculty” you’d have been spot on right. You didn’t write that though. Hell, you could have written “a significant majority of professors come from top 3 law schools” since the majority of HLS faculty got their law degree from Harvard, and my sense is that a distant number 2 is Yale. You didn’t write that either though. Either your research was lazy or your language imprecise, at best.
P.S. Jonathan A. Rapping got his law degree from GWU. Joost Pauwelyn seems to have gone to Duke (ranked 11 by USNews). Harry S. Martin got his JD at UofMinnesota, no slouch but not top-10. Phillip Malone got his law degree at UofArizona. Kristin E. Hickman did her undergrad at Trinity (TX) and her law degree at Northwestern (ranked 12 by USNews). Robert Greenwald did undergrad at Vassar and law school at Northeastern.
too bad it’s all wrong.
You know I’m right though.
And you are another BMG poster who can’t admit you’re wrong.
Just to take one example Rapping went to Univ of Chicago, got a masters at Princeton and then a GWU law degree. He’s only a visiting associate professor.
Malone went to Harvard UG and clearly has a specialty on Internet stuff and is a center director. He is a clinical professor whatever that is.
Martin got his JD in 1968 and a MS in Library Science in 1971. He’s a Librarian and a Library professor, again whatever that is.
I don’t think you’ve made your case at all. Maybe “shooting yourself in the foot” is more the expression you were thinking of.
With respect to top-10, first, you wrote “ALL” and “Harvard Law School faculty” and “education pedigrees”.
Then you walked back on “education pedigrees” and changed it to law schools. Then you included undergrad when the law school wasn’t top 10. Then you excluded visiting professors. Then you “whatever that is” to clinical professors. Then you disregarded Professor Martin because, well, it was yet another example of where your claim was wrong.
As I wrote, had you written “most” you’d have been absolutely right. You didn’t. You overclaimed, and I called you out. It’s still true that Elizabeth Warren didn’t attend top 10 schools, and it’s true that is a rare thing at Harvard. It’s not unique though, contrary to your claim.
My case was and is simply that your claim was wrong. I only needed to cite one example to show that you were wrong. I’ve cited a half dozen or so, and with each one you do another backtwist.
and she went to Univ of Houston and it’s sucky school too.
Very very very few tenured Harvard Law School went to sucky schools.
Warren however did.
There you go, clear enough? I suppose you are going to defend sucky schools now.
PS I realize sucky is not in the dictionary but it’s clear that you need greater simplicity than the dictionary provides.
And you need to get over your case of BMG never wrongitis
I thought the complaint about Elizabeth Warren was that she was “elitist” — Harvard Professor and all. You simultaneously claim that she’s not qualified. Which is it?
Frankly, this whole discussion is tiresome. Elizabeth Warren is a nationally-recognized leader on finance reform and associated law. Do you really think you’re going to sway independent voters by attempting to paint her as some kind of fraud? Good luck with that.
merrimackguy has convinced me that Elizabeth Warren must really be an exceptional intellect for Harvard to choose her, given the lackluster schools she attended. Quite a notable achievement, isn’t it?
is the point. Republicans should love this story – young mom gets herself degrees from a couple of not-highly-ranked state schools, then through sheer force of will and intellect ends up dramatically changing the national conversation on an incredibly important issue to the point where even Harvard Law School couldn’t fail to notice. Fact is, Warren has already accomplished a great deal more than most law professors ever will in terms of actually affecting the real world. Believe me, I’ve suffered through more law review articles than I care to recall.
And yet, Republicans are worried that Warren doesn’t belong on the Harvard faculty because of where she got her degrees. Who knew Republicans were such elitists? (Hint: I did, and so did you.)
Translation, Harvard wanted her husband AND hiring her would give them a more diverse faculty (2 boxes checked).
Maybe she helped get her husband the job.
Other than that I do like her story, speaking as a Republican. She’s a 1%er and who wouldn’t like someone who makes all the money she does. I think her charitable contributions are a little light ($25K) for someone making what she makes but she does contribute a lot more than Joe Biden’s average $369/year. She takes advantage of legal deductions which you guys only dislike for Republican Presidential candidates (or do you dislike it for Republican Senatorial candidates too?).
Her work with the Consumer protection agency was very good and I am glad someone did what she did. Americans are better off knowing what they are getting into wrt mortgages, credit cards, loans… and banks are on notice to provide transparency or suffer the consequences. THANK YOU EW and I mean it. Too bad your boss (OBAMA) dropped you from heading that agency. He could have made a deal but I guess you were expendable.
Makes sense now. Thanks Kirth.
You’re absolutely right. EWarren went to sucky undergraduate and sucky law school, and very few HLS professors went to sucky one or sucky the other, no less both. I won’t quibble with “sucky”, since relative to Harvard and Yale, UofHouston and Rutgers are “sucky”.
I’m just not sure why you couldn’t just write that in the first place, or the second place, or the third place.
…now you are changing the subject about her pedigree vs others. You apparently did that because your at a lost to explain how she can be a trailing spouse, when she actually was at Harvard for 10 years before her husband was.
“I like Elizabeth Warren a lot. She taught me Secured Transactions in law school — and anyone who can make that subject interesting is certainly worth a look. But although Warren is brilliant and engaging (and she really is), there are at least four reasons she can’t beat Brown.”
link
Since then, Warren has risen in the polls and Braceras hasn’t been as complimentary. But she’s hardly a “nobody.”
Doesn’t make her a good Senator.
What I find sad is that most universities ( and I would assume Harvard) don’t seem to care about the teaching ability of the professors – they just have to have a PhD from the proper university.
Recently Northeastern got rid of all of it’s professors who didn’t have a PhD. This didn’t improve the teaching environment – but maybe it improved their ranking.