Liz Warren, Who Claimed To Be Native American For Her Career, Rails Against SCOTUS Striking Down Race-Based Admissions
Arjun Singh on June 30, 2023
Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts strongly criticized the Supreme Court Thursday for ruling that race-based admissions in higher education are unconstitutional, even though she claimed she was a Native American in a move which many argue was to benefit her career.
Warren, who is known for her left-wing advocacy, tweeted her opposition to the court following its ruling in Students for Fair Admissions v. Harvard, which in a 6-3 vote ruled that using race as a direct factor in admissions, also known as “affirmative action,” is unconstitutional and violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. However, Warren had for decades claimed that she had Cherokee and Delaware ancestry, including in her hiring process to become a professor of law at Harvard University in 1992.
Warren represented her alleged Native American heritage to Harvard at the time of her hiring and she was identified as a Native American by the institution, according to The Washington Post, as well as by peer law schools, who described her as the Harvard Law faculty’s “first women of color.” Despite claiming that she has of native descent, Warren has never been a citizen of any tribal nation and was revealed to have between 1/64th and 1/1024th native ancestry following a DNA test she took in 2018, though the test did not compare her DNA to Native Americans currently residing within the U.S.
An extremist Supreme Court has once again reversed decades of settled law, rolled back the march toward racial justice, and narrowed educational opportunity for all. I won’t stop fighting for young people with big dreams who deserve an equal chance to pursue their future.
— Elizabeth Warren (@SenWarren) June 29, 2023
Warren’s DNA test came following staunch criticism from Republicans for her claim of native ancestry, notably from then-President Donald Trump, who referred to her jokingly as “Pocahontas” and demanded that she take a test to prove her claims.
Warren’s defense of her claims — claiming that she was told she was Cherokee by her mother — following the test was slammed by Republicans and Native Americans.
“[Y]our history of false claims to American Indian ancestry and the defense of these claims with a highly publicized DNA test continue to dog your political career,” wrote a group of 200 prominent Native Americans to Warren following the test. They added that “your (sic) actions have normalized white people claiming to be Native, and perpetuated a dangerous misunderstanding of tribal sovereignty. Your actions do not exist in a vacuum but have a long and violent history.”
Trump, at the time, tweeted a graphic mocking Warren’s 2020 presidential campaign, which read: “Warren, 1/2020th.”
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 3, 2019
Warren later repudiated her claims of being a person of color during her presidential campaign and in a letter to tribal leaders.
Investigations of Warren’s background reveal that she claimed she was Native American in 1986 when applying for membership of the State Bar of Texas, suggesting she had a pattern of claiming native ancestry.
Warren, the Cherokee Nation and the Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
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