Elizabeth Warren’s DNA test sounds more like ‘identity theft’

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) should apologize for claiming that she was Native American earlier in her career. If she were to admit that she made a mistake to make such a claim based on little more than family lore and “high cheekbones,” the conversation could move forward. Progressives were not nearly as blind to the problematic aspects of claiming an identity with flimsy support when it came to Rachel Dolezal so why should we make an exception for Warren.

Admitting that her claim to Native American identity was wrong would take some of the air out of President Trump’s seemingly racist and inflammatory attacks and would demonstrate that Sen. Warren has a better appreciation today of the significance of checking that box than she did when she was younger. 

{mosads}There are good ways for Sen. Warren do deal with this issue; releasing the findings of a DNA study that shows Indian ancestry six to ten generations ago was the wrong way for her to deal with this and raises more questions than it answers.

Sen. Warren tweeted on Monday that her DNA “contains Native American ancestry,” but such evidence does not prove that her claim to Indian heritage was justified. As Cherokee Nation Cherokee Nation Secretary of State Chuck Hoskin Jr. noted in a press release, “Senator Warren is undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage.” Though the timing of Senator Warren’s claim to Indian identity is a bit suspicious — coming as it did before getting hired to teach at Harvard Law —  the Boston Globe’s investigation is fairly convincing that her claim was not a factor in Harvard’s hiring decision.

I am inclined to believe this for another reason: in 2003, Harvard received money to establish an endowed chair in Indian law that was to be held by visiting professors until the school picked a tenured professor for the chair. There are quite a few well-qualified law professors who teach Indian law, who are tribal members, and who would make first rate Harvard Law professors. If Harvard really did value diversity as much as some of the attacks on Sen. Warren’s Indian claim suggest, surely the school would have done more to convert the Oneida chair position from a long-term visiting position into a full member of the faculty. 

But the argument that Sen. Warren’s stellar academic career had nothing to do with her box checking is hardly responsive to the question whether she was wrong to claim Indian-identity as she did. Personally, I like Sen. Warren’s politics, and certainly among most law professors it is almost sacrilege to criticize her. Like most academics, I think President Trump has been a disaster for this country and I have to hope that voters reclaim our higher values of decency, tolerance, and rational decision-making in both the midterms and in 2020. 

Warren is not my first pick for the Democratic nominee to challenge Trump, but even comparing the two is ridiculous. One is a dangerous clown who seems intent on destroying the country; the other offers a politics that tries to rein in the rampant inequality that if left unchecked undermines democracy and growth. But it troubles me that progressives are so willing to look the other way on Sen. Warren’s Indian claim issue, even as many tribal members speak out against Sen. Warren’s ignorant — at best — understanding of Indian identity and urge her to admit she made a mistake.

I can’t help but think that if Indians were not so politically marginalized today (for proof of this, one has to look no further than the Washington, D.C. football team), progressives would be demanding an apology from Sen. Warren.

Instead, my social media feed is filled with people smugly asserting that President Trump owes Senator Warren the $1 million that he promised he would pay if a DNA test showed she was an Indian. What a remarkably thin understanding of Indian identity. Warren’s claim that President Trump must pay up is arguably just as ignorant as President Trump’s pledge in that both presume that a DNA test provides definitive proof either way.

I may be in the same profession as Sen. Warren was in before she became a senator, but I am playing T-ball while she plays in the major leagues. Even on topics that I know well, my views carry little weight, but as a non-Indian myself, my views on Indian identity should be heavily discounted and greeted with skepticism. Then again, so should Sen. Warren’s position on Indian identity.

By now, many of these same talking points are already being recycled by far right media groups who could care less about the complexities of Indian identity. As others have noted, Warren’s decision to release her DNA “proof” could not have come at a worse moment, just weeks before the midterm elections. 

It is far more important, for example, that Jennifer Wexton defeat Barbara Comstock in my district, than it is that Sen. Warren admits her mistake. But it does make me nervous about the future when one of the leading figures in the Democratic Party seems incapable of admitting she should not have claimed to be Indian in the way that she did.

And as someone who does care about the continued vitality of Indian nations, it troubles me that Senator Warren continues to stand her ground when she should retreat for the sake of tribal communities as well. Here’s hoping that her next press release reads simply, “I should not have claimed to be an Indian, now let’s move on to the significant challenges facing the country.”  

Ezra Rosser is a law professor at American University Washington College of Law. You can follow him on Twitter @EzraRosser.