Elizabeth Warren, academia, and affirmative action
I can’t get quite as worked up about the Elizabeth Warren Cherokee flap as so many others have. That’s because I decided long ago (even before my political “change”) that however well-intentioned affirmative action may have originally been, it’s a bad thing in a host of ways.
So this particular incident doesn’t surprise me especially. The entire policy has long been subject to abuse, and if Elizabeth Warren was one of those who made a false or exaggerated claim of minority status she would hardly be the first. The drive for diversity in hiring has always been far less about the actual life of the actual person hired, and whether he/she (or his/her immediate ancestors) has in fact experienced any sort of meaningful discrimination, than in the numbers and the lists. An institution must prove it has enough minority hires or be under fire for discrimination. Equality of opportunity simply isn’t good enough; it can only be proven by equality of outcome.
But a person of privilege (which the young Elizabeth Warren actually was not) can be of any race. And even if Ms. Warren had been half Cherokee, instead of 1/32 or whatever miniscule fraction she’s supposed to be, so what? The far more important characteristics of any candidate for acceptance to a school or a job are what that person has accomplished—and yes, what they’ve overcome along the way. That speaks to brains, character, and drive. But mere membership in a race or ethnic group doesn’t tell you that; the person’s own history and resume tells you far more.
When it was instituted, affirmative action by racial or ethnic category quickly became a form of reparations, an attempt to make up for injustices done to a person’s group’s ancestors by a present-day favoritism to a person of that group, and a present-day injustice to members of other groups designated as privileged. Not a good idea. What’s more, the real focus of affirmative action became not the student accepted or the person hired, but the school or company itself, which needed to point to statistics giving a head count of their designated minorities and/or victim groups, and show that they’d racked up the proper count.
Thus, we get incidents like this one, where the Harvard Crimson claimed (in 1998) that Elizabeth Warren was a Native American hire (although Harvard is now refusing to say whether Warren is the one Native American professor they list in their diversity roster).
I would guess this has always been more about Harvard than about anything Warren actually got out of it. After all, if you think about it, merely being a women would have been enough diversity back in the days when she was hired. Harvard Law and other schools have long been under great pressure to hire more minorities and/or other groups that have been defined as victims of discrimination, such as women, and the head count is a very serious matter and continues to this day.
There is something so profoundly ironic about the whole thing, isn’t there? Combating racism with more racism, sort of like curing a hangover with the hair of the dog that bit you.
[NOTE: I probably need to make it clear that, if Warren had falsely claimed Native American status in order to be hired, that would be a serious issue. As a voter I would consider it an important strike against her (although I wouldn’t be voting for Ms. Warren in the first place). But the nature of affirmative action as a whole is what interests me far more than anything Ms. Warren did or didn’t do.]
I take it “Native American” refers to American Indians?
There are no native Americans, just people who came here before other people.
Years ago, in a galaxy far far away, a department was having its feet held to the fire by the Feds to hire a woman, basically any woman.
So they found one, and at the faculty meeting the assembled lights went through various intellectual contortions for why this woman really deserved to be in the department, she really was up to snuff, excellent candidate, etc.
Then one crusty old prof, now deceased, took the unlit cigar out of his mouth and said, “Let’s cut the crap. We’re hiring simply she’s a woman, and we need to hire a woman so the Feds won’t make good on their threat to cut us off from Federal funding. So there’s nothing to discuss; let’s just do it, and get it over with.”
Occam is right. I would have no problem with any person born in the United States checking the “Native American” box.
If you want to eliminate racism like affirmative action, disrespect it.
As I’ve said here before, ridicule is a powerful weapon, and ol’ Heap Big Bull Shit is getting hammered by various Internet wits, and made a laughingstock (and a rapidly deflating candidate), the more so as she gives more and more ridiculous excuses i.e. the first one being, “I don’t know what you are talking about,” then, “our “family lore ” is that we have Indian blood,” then, “well, I listed myself as a “native American” each year for nine years in legal directories because I was hoping that “someone like me” would call me up for tea or I would get invited to a luncheon,” to the current “well, my grandfather had “high cheekbones,” like all Indians.”
I noted with interest that, at first, genealogists at the big league New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS) could find no evidence of any Indian ancestors (boy, I bet they were running around like someone had kicked over an ant’s nest, scrambling to find something, anything to back up her claim) then an “electronic record” of one of Warren’s 5th great grandmothers (out of 128 ancestors in that generation) listing herself as Cherokee on a marriage record was found, making Warren 1/32nd Indian, to the later admission by NEHGS genealogists that the actual paper marriage certificate for Warren’s 5th great granny they found mentions nothing about Cherokee or any other Indian status.
Having done a lot of genealogical research over the last 20 years, I am well familiar with how records can list all sorts of erroneous information, the Census being exhibit number one, and how in moving from one format to another– say a paper record transcribed into electronic format–all sorts of errors can be introduced.
Bottom line, apparently white bread Warren very deliberately and cynically inflated and spun some undocumented “family lore” into a false claim of “minority status” to improve her job prospects, and Harvard was only too happy to hire her on as a “minority” (bragging about it in the “Harvard Crimson,” no less) to improve their reputation for “diversity.”
Funny thing though. As soon as she was hired, not a peep from her thereafter about her status as an Indian, and no mention of this on the campaign trail–where she reportedly regaled audiences with her whole life story and history–until questions were raised by her opponent’s campaign and, then, Warren started digging with her, “I don’t know what you are talking about.”
If I were her opponent Scott Brown, I’d have somebody playing “Halfbreed” or “Cherokee nation” on a boom box show up at every one of Warren’s appearances, I’d have my partisans join in the fun on the Internet, and I’d start circulating Photoshopped pictures of her in Indian dress.
I manage the affirmative action program for my small company as we are required by various laws and by certain large customers to record the ethnicity/gender, etc. of our employees and owners. Naturally, it behooves us to have as many minority employees and owners as possible to be able to “check the box” and qualify for various advantages. Recently, I had to complete a form for Ford Motors, one of our customers, that included some new boxes for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered ownership. I was tempted to ask our owners (all white males) if any of them wore their wife’s underwear so we could qualify as a transgendered-owned company to obtain more business from Ford. I know if I could get my owners to check the Native American box we would definitely improve our profitability. Of course, to do that would be fraudulent and wrong – just as it was for Warren to do the same. For a liberal who supposedly believes in affirmative action to claim fake minority status for the sake of political correctness speaks to her character, as well as the morality of Harvard Law School which willingly went along with this farce. Elizabeth Warren does not qualify for membership in any Indian Tribe. It is a crime that an aryan looking, blue eyed blond who is also very wealthy should be allowed to get away with falsely taking advantage of a program designed to help disadvantaged people of color.
Jimbo: sorry, transvestites don’t count.
“we have Indian blood”
On your hands doesn’t count, Elizabeth.
my grandfather had “high cheekbones,” like all Indians.”
Hey, my grandfather (and I) have high cheekbones, like all Slavs. Zygomatic arches rule!
Oh, and Elizabeth, you might profitably look up the etymology of the word “Slav.”
The object lesson here being that, in our present predicament, any sociopolitical solution eventually becomes what it has set out to defend against. Eliminating racism/sexism ends in resorting to racism/sexism. In the center ring under the big top you have EU authoritarianism/tyranny destroying national identities that engender nationalism that leads to authoritarianism/tyranny. You have also guilt-ridden Europe making a mea culpa of the genocide against the Jews by importing genocidal mussulmen. Our intellectual and academic institutions, constituted as they are, would define the phenomenon as a ‘circle jerk’.
Assuming no worst case scenarios, social anthropologists will one day uncover our remains and find a mother lode of wacky that will keep them busy for centuries.
IMO the important hypocrisy of the Elizabeth Warren affair is being overlooked nationwide. In the post above Wolla Dalbo comes close but I don’t think addresses it directly.
Assuming for the sake of discussion that Warren’s claim to Cherokee ancestry is valid, when pointed out that she benefited from AA, her response was something aboput the claim being racist for implying that a woman couldn’t make it on her own but needed to rely on AA (Julia anyone?)
Wait a minute!! Do liberals not support AA because it helps formerly disadvantaged minorities? When it’s attacked do they not defend it as a GOOD thing? Yet, when confrfonted with the potential legitimate reliance on AA to further her career she bristles at the inference that AA helped her get where she is?
That is the hypocrisy. Liberals, themselves, don’t even care to affirm the policies they SUPPORT while constantly declaring them right and just to stake a claim to the moral high ground. It’s kind of like insisting declaring that “there is no shame in abortion, but don’t tell anyone I had one myself.”
I hear Warren is a Red Sox fan, except when they play Cleveland. She then roots for Cleveland every 32nd game they play.
“Jimbo: sorry, transvestites don’t count.”
Yet.
Actually, many definitions of transgenderism include all kinds of variations of transexuality and transvestitism. Technically, a cross dresser/transvestite can be considered someone who seeks a sexual identity other then their biological sex and can therefore could be considered to be a member of what some institutions (such as Ford Motors) considers a minority group qualifying for affirmative action. Interestingly enought, most minority-owned companies have to provide documented proof of the minority racial status of their owners of 51% of their stock to qualify as a minority or female owned company. This standard is much higher than the standard of Harvard University which merely requires their law school professors to self-identify by checking off a box. In the business world we get a lot of laughs about minority status firms as we have one business partner that is officially owned by a Native American woman but her italian-american husband runs the business. We always wonder what will happed in future generations as the rate of racial intermarriage increases. Already, certain Indian Tribes often require DNA tests to award tribal membership. Where are the DNA test results for Elizabeth Warren?? Is there a DNA test for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender orientations? Don’t laugh, these things can become required in the future.
This is interesting. It so happens that I am 1/32nd Pawnee based on information (family lore) much like Warren’s claim to being 1/32nd Cherokee. The fact that my great grandmother on my mother’s side was half Pawnee was not talked about much. It was considered somewhat risky or shameful in the early 1900s to be considered a halfbreed. The lore was passed on to me as something not to be discussed – a family secret not to be talked about.
Heh, maybe I could have been VP of flight operations had I revealed my American Indian blood. :>) (I do not in any way consider myself to have any connection to American Indian blood except word of mouth.) I did have one flight manager, a Japanese-American, who jovially referred to himself as the company’s token minority flight manager. He was one sharp cookie though – certainly deserved to be in the job, affirmative action promotion or not.
AA has long passed it’s use by date.
Did you all see the latest from Claudia Rosett at PJM? The UN is now investigating whether we have to give land back to the Naitive Americans. I guess Turtle Bay won’t be a part of the compensation, so Elizabeth’s share will probably be a little smaller. I am sick of this whole minority AA thing. How many people know anything substantial about ancesters that far back?
“Native American”…Gives me an instant rash whenever I hear the PC-Diversity Police moniker. I have yet to hear anyone in the ‘hood I’ve been ‘visiting’ every Friday for 3+years ever, EVER refer to themselves as ‘African American’, but, by God, don’t ***k with the PC-Thought Police.
2-months or so ago I happened on Ms.Massively Native American Warren blathering on economics and why the rich(she’s a multi/multi millionaire)are breathing clean air and driving safe roads and blah, blah, blah and therefore…what she segued into was pure unvarnished Karl Marx’s Labor Theory of Value. Hey, Liz Baby, at least the pinhead Karl had the excuse that he was working without a true scientific method. Nothing of the sort applies to you, Hon.
What really ought to outrage everyone is how Warren —reportedly a very wealthy women worth as much as $14 million, according to reports she and her husband, also a Harvard professor, are together somehow pulling down $900K per year, and she has a several million dollar “teepee” in Cambridge–has, it appears, gamed policies/programs supposedly set up to help usually poor and really disadvantaged Indians. Thus, if Warren did, indeed, get her faculty positions, in whole or in part, because of her supposedly minority status as an Indian, presumably any candidates who were real Indians were euchred out of positions they could potentially have gotten at the law schools at the University of Texas, Penn, and finally at Harvard.
I suggest a salutary visit sometime to some of the reservations in this country, to see what “disadvantaged” looks like on the Rez. Yes, I know there are some very wealthy tribes which own casinos, but from what I have read it appears that it is often only the top leadership of the tribe that really gets rich. However, from the few examples I have personally seen and the occasional news story, it appears that, for the bulk of the Indians in this country, particularly those on the Rez, the norm is likely to be institutionalized poverty.
I’m not so sure that being female would have been enough for her to be hired by Harvard Law. She is apparently the only member of the 100-member faculty who didn’t graduate from a top-ten law school (Rutgers-Newark ranks 82nd). In fact, only one current faculty member in any Ivy League law school graduated from a lower-ranked program.
I’m 1/8th Shawnee. I’ve never worn that as a badge of honor or particular merit. Its just a part of my family history. I still honor the memory of my maternal grandmother where that part of my DNA came from, but she was just Gramma not some noble savage full of wisdom, although she was indeed wise.
I always find it interesting that the Warrens of the world are all part Cherokee, never another tribe, and wear their alleged (or even real 1/32nd) heritage as a badge of authenticity and nobility. The lady should simply shut her pie hole. She, like me, is a Native American because she was born here and not for her 1/32nd Cherokee heritage…. assuming its real.
The UN is now investigating whether we have to give land back to the Naitive Americans.
Oh, we have to do that, or the UN will do what, precisely? Not cash our check to them? Send us a sternly worded letter?
Occam,
I have no truck for the UN and could care less what some blue beret fellow thinks or decides, but there is no doubt the various tribes were cheated out of their treaty arrangements. So much for the full faith and credit of the Government of the United States of America. I have long thought all BLM lands and parts of state/national forests should be given to the various tribes in compensation. From their perspective, they were nations dealing with the United States of America, and the USA did not live by its sworn, legal obligations. Its a matter of the rule of law.
Wolla Dalbo wrote:
“I know there are some very wealthy tribes which own casinos, but from what I have read it appears that it is often only the top leadership of the tribe that really gets rich. ”
There is nothing new under the sun.
All those poor, fore lorn American Indians “stuck” on those evil reservations need do is–GASP–walk or drive or catch a bus out of those fetid fields and go to a city and begin building a real American life with the rest of us goof-balls.
Breaking News…
Warren campaign introduces new theme music
…developing
http://youtu.be/E3meEmDpaDU
According to the results of various DNA tests I have had done for genealogical purposes, I do not have any “Indian blood” (and neither do I have “high cheekbones”) and am about as totally white bread and Celtic as possible. Thus, outside of a few visits to Reservations, a few movies growing up, and many Tony Hillerman novels, I am in the position of being on the outside looking in, and not privy to the mind and thoughts of Indians–on or off the Reservation.
But, I’ve always been puzzled by their situation.
Pretty it up as you might try to do, it seems to me that History is the record of one group of people coveting and then trying to expand into/take over the territory, women, and possessions of another people, and of almost constant warfare, and it can be argued that all the other things we usually consider as History and Culture are usually produced, or driven, or influenced by this basic fact; not the ideal situation but, the reality.
And in these struggles the group with a larger population, superior culture/ideology, war fighting skills and technology usually wins, as we did. Ironically, it now is starting to appear, from the most recent archeological and genetic research, that long before Indians arrived from Asia, America may have already been settled by Caucasians from Europe, and that they died out, interbred with and/or were conquered by the later incoming Indians. Who knows, there may have been other groups that settled here in America, before either the Europeans or Indians, and who were conquered in their turn.
Be that as it may, once Americans fought and were successful in conquering the Indians, it is obvious that whatever pious words were uttered or treaties signed, there was a concerted effort by many Americans to grab their land, destroy their culture, and marginalize them, and make them dependents of the State, isolated and walled off on Reservations; Reservations that were usually not on prime land and often not the original home territories of the Indians involved.
Those Indians who survived and took the deal of dependency and reservations have really gotten screwed.
Yes, they were able to preserve some elements of their Culture and way of life, but at a great price–poverty and, from the evidence, despair. Emblematic of this approach is the literally decades long suit by Indian groups, asking for an accounting of the profits from the sale of things like oil, gas, uranium and other minerals that are on Indian land that the federal government i.e. the Department of the Interior and the Bureau of Land Management, as trustee for the Indians, was supposed to be collecting and then remitting to the tribes involved. So far the government–after decades of legal maneuvering that is still going on– has admitted that the records, covering many decades of income, are so incomplete and messed up that they claim not to be able to give an accurate accounting, but according to Indian estimates of how much money should have been collected and remitted to them, much of this money had somehow disappeared, and never made it to the Indians.
What I don’t understand is why more Indians do no leave the Reservations and try–despite what barriers there might be to getting a good education and job–to attain a better life, at least materially. That’s what I would do, but perhaps from an Indian perspective (if there is a general “Indian perspective”) that is not what should be striven for.
P.S.–Perhaps I should also say that, trying to find the reality behind/pierce the fog of movies, books, and images, I don’t really buy the whole mystical, peaceful, innocent, “walk lightly on the land” Indian shtick.
From recent studies, it appears that the Indians were just as “savage” as we were–just in some different ways, and that warfare between tribes was almost constant, with the Iroquois, for instance, famed for the savagery of their torture techniques, and the famed “Old Ones,” the Anasazi, apparently involved in some sort of horrific cannibalistic regime.
So, do I think the Indians were saints, absolutely not, but do I think they’ve gotten screwed, absolutely yes.
I’m surprised the MSM hasn’t used the decimal equivalent instead of the fraction to describe Warren’s percentages. Whereas half of Americans probably think her being .03125 Cherokee means she damn near full blooded.
the Indians were just as “savage” as we were–just in some different ways, and that warfare between tribes was almost constant, with the Iroquois, for instance, famed for the savagery of their torture techniques, and the famed “Old Ones,” the Anasazi, apparently involved in some sort of horrific cannibalistic regime.
Exactly. And let’s not forget the Aztecs. Various Hispanic “activists” here in SoCal identify strongly with the Aztecs, apparently not realizing that statistically they were more likely to have been in one of the tribes whose members ended their days having their hearts ripped out as a sacrifice to the Sun God.
T: don’t you mean under the Mohegan Sun?
Occam–Yeah, if you actually do some reading of accounts by anthropologists/archeologists about Aztec civilization you find that they were an incredibly bloody and barbaric “civilization.” My favorite is the Tzompantli, racks of severed heads built in the shape of high pyramids that apparently graced major cities in the Aztec Empire. Seems like Mexico is on its way to bringing back the custom.
SteveH–As someone who has witnessed the college aged girl behind the deli counter look puzzled and ask her older co-worker how much 2/3ds of a pound was, the four people with calculators who worked for 15 minutes to figure a discount at the supermarket and still got it wrong (in my favor),you make an excellent point.
In fact being able to do simple math in your head–these days–apparently strikes some onlookers as akin to magic.
In fact being able to do simple math in your head—these days—apparently strikes some onlookers as akin to magic.
He’s in league with the devil! Or, even worse, George Bush!
The fun part occurs when one presents the result of the mental calculation to one of these lower primates, who dismisses it as a mere guess, only to evince astonishment and boundless wonder as the calculator gives the same answer.
Neoneocon,
“Mohegan Sun”
I wish I’da thought of that.
Wolla Dalbo, you might find Empire of the Summer Moon of interest. Quanah Parker figured it out. BTW, my gramma told me that sometimes its best to bend with the wind but never forget you have a spine.
Now comes the news that Haavaahd had some sort of organization for “native Americans” that put on social events, and old Heap Big Bull Shit–she who just wanted some fellowship with Indians like her– never attended a one.
Harvard has said that Warren was not hired because of her “minority” status.
But, according to information that has recently been posted on the Web, Harvard only hires from the top 10 universities, and Warren–apparently not noted as a particularly brilliant scholar–is a graduate of Rutgers; hardly a top ten school.
As more and more information comes out, it just gets worse and worse for ol’ Fauxcahantas Warren.
I had forgotten that Harvard’s original charter, issued in 1650, stated that Harvard was to be established “for the education of “English and Indian youth in this country.”
Moreover, HUNAP, the Harvard University Native American Program, apparently has some function or other on campus almost every day of the week.
And it just keeps getting worse.