Elizabeth Warren has repeatedly identified herself as Cherokee.
For most of her early career, while she worked at the University of Texas, this was not the case. However, beginning in the mid 1980s, as she was aspiring to move from University of Texas to the Ivy Leagues, she also began identifying herself as ‘Native American’ on professional documents.
In 1986 she declared her race as “American Indian” on her registration card for the State Bar of Texas. That same year, she began listing herself as “Native American” in the AALS Directory of Law Professors. She landed a job at the University of Pennsylvania shortly after she began professionally identifying as Native American.
The leap from University of Texas to UPenn was quite the step up (especially at that time). She insisted University of Pennsylvania categorize her as “Native American” — and they were happy to do so. UPenn administration highlighted Warren’s appointment in their Minority Equity Reports to show they were making progress on hiring and retaining ‘diverse’ faculty.
In 1995, Warren was appointed a named chair at Harvard Law, and the largest salary of any faculty member at the whole school outside of university administration. Harvard has insisted Warren’s ‘Native American ancestry’ made no impact on their hiring decisions. Yet the university immediately held up the recruitment of Warren, a ‘Native American woman,’ to push back against claims that they were insufficiently diverse, and to diffuse pressure to hire more people of color. Warren was also celebrated as Harvard Law’s “first woman of color” in a 1997 Fordham Law Review article and beyond.
On the lighter side, she published multiple recipes to a cookbook, Pow Wow Chow: A Collection of Recipes from Families of the Five Civilized Tribes – all signed, “Elizabeth Warren, Cherokee.”
Yet Warren has consistently struggled to substantiate her claims to Native American ancestry (beyond her grandfather’s “high cheekbones”). She asserts her mother was “part Cherokee and part Delaware,” yet a prominent Cherokee genealogist who traced Warren’s maternal ancestry all the way back to the Revolutionary War era found no evidence of any Native American heritage. Some relatives have publicly disputed Warren’s narrative about their family. And, of course, Warren phenotypically presents as white.
For these reasons, she has faced consistent accusations that her claims to Native American ancestry were either mistaken or cynical. The President of the United States mockingly refers to her as “Pocahontas” – and told Warren he would pay $1 million dollars to a charity of her choice “if you take the test and it shows you’re an Indian.” He predicted Warren would decline this challenge. It would have been better for her if she had.
What the Test Shows (and Doesn’t)
According to the test, Warren’s DNA is between 1/64 and 1/1032 Columbian, Mexican and/or Peruvian (used as proxies for measuring Cherokee heritage for reasons described in the report); between 0.1% and 1.5% of her DNA may be Native American in origin; she may have had a Native American ancestor between 6- 10 generations back.
Warren depicted this as “slam dunk” proof that she really is of Native American ancestry. This is a base-rate fallacy. In fact, the average white person in America has 0.18% Native American DNA – meaning they could be described as about 1/ 556 Native American, or as having a Native American ancestor 9 –10 generations back. That is, Warren does not seem to have a unique claim to Native American heritage over and above the typical white American.
For comparison: the average U.S. white also has about 0.19% African DNA; they can be said to be 1/ 526 black, or to have a black ancestor 9- 10 generations back. Rachel Dolezal might have about the same genetic claim to being black as Elizabeth Warren does to being Cherokee. Already, memes are circulating comparing the two. Of course, Warren and supporters can make arguments explaining how the two cases are not similar – but this is beside the point. If it has to be explained why or how Warren is substantively different from Dolezal, the war is already lost.
Non-Sequitur
Rather than acknowledging she has no meaningful claim to Cherokee / Native American heritage or identity, Warren has doubled down. She claims to have “won” the bet, and has demanded Trump donate $1 million to the National Indigenous Women’s Resource Center. The president has refused, insisting he won the wager. Unfortunately, he is correct: although Warren did take the test, it did not prove she is “an Indian.”
Genes, race and ethnicity are non-identical — and the relationship between them is complicated. Warren is phenotypically white. She has no identifiable Native American ancestor, no clan affiliation, and no meaningful connection to Cherokee language, customs or culture. As a result, even if the DNA test had suggested she could meet the 1/16 blood quantum required by Cherokee for a federally-recognized Certificate of Degree of Indian Blood (she was nowhere near this) – it would still not have established Warren is “an Indian.”
It was actually impossible for Warren to actually win Trump’s bet: Cherokee do not decide who is (or is not) one of them the basis of DNA; what matters are clan ancestry, tracing one’s genealogy to an ancestor on the “Dawes Rolls,” or being adopted into a clan by a Clan Mother. Elizabeth Warren fails to meet any of these criteria. As a result, she is simply not Cherokee – not even a little. DNA is irrelevant.
This point was powerfully driven home by the Cherokee Nation’s Secretary of State, who described Warren’s attempt as wrong-headed and insulting. He went on to say that Warren is “undermining tribal interests with her continued claims of tribal heritage” (neither Warren nor her team consulted with Cherokee leadership before conducting the test or releasing the results).
Self-Destruction
Rather than neutralizing Trump’s attacks, the DNA test and accompanying roll out has made it far easier to portray Warren as a “phony”: She appropriated Native American heritage for years in both private and professional settings. Confronted with evidence that her claims were illegitimate (her DNA is comparable to the average white; she has no other empirical proof of heritage) – Warren nonetheless claimed vindication, emulating Trump’s “post-truth politics.” Throughout, she failed to challenge (and in fact, reinforced) Trump’s false narratives about race, Affirmative Action and the quality of the minority applicants who benefit from it.
Rather than using her platforms and energies to discuss her own agenda, hold Trump accountable for his record and proposals, or speak to constituents’ priorities (as she did back in mid-2000’s, when she got her start on the Dr. Phil Show) — we are instead discussing Warren’s (lack of) Native American ancestry… because she herself dragged the issue into the spotlight.
In a recent interview with the New York Times Trump declared, “I do think Elizabeth Warren’s been hurt very badly with the Pocahontas trap.” Note that language: it was a trap. And she fell for it.
Elizabeth Warren tried to play Trump’s game. She lost. Democrats, take heed.