Politics

Documents likely contradict Warren’s claim of not knowing Harvard promoted her as minority

Alex Pappas Political Reporter
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Embattled Massachusetts senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has argued over the last several weeks that she didn’t know Harvard has been promoting her as a Native American minority.

But in a damaging Friday front-page story in the Boston Globe, the newspaper cites documents and sources showing that Harvard not only listed her that way for six years, but the school likely obtained that information from Warren herself.

The paper reported that “for at least six straight years during Warren’s tenure, Harvard University reported in federally mandated diversity statistics that it had a Native American woman in its senior ranks at the law school. According to both Harvard officials and federal guidelines, those statistics are almost always based on the way employees describe themselves.”

It was revealed about four weeks ago that Warren — at an early stage of her career —was listed as an American-Indian minority in legal publications. She has admitted to describing herself as Native American in certain situations to meet others of the heritage, but has denied knowledge of Harvard using that information to promote her.

Warren has also struggled to prove her claims of American Indian ancestry, other than saying she knows of it through family lore. Critics have accused her of claiming minority status in the past to gain an unfair advantage when applying for jobs.

On Thursday, Warren appeared frustrated that reporters in Massachusetts asked her for proof of her minority claims. It was her first public appearance in more than a week.

She tried dodging the questions at first, but when pressed about why she once claimed minority status but doesn’t identify that way anymore, she responded: “I have answered these questions. I am going to talk about what’s happening to America’s families.”

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