Not to mention, she was disappointed there was no casino on the Res.
Posted on 02/22/2018 5:48:18 AM PST by billorites
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) was invited at least three times to speak with Native American students at Harvard Law School while she was a faculty member, but she never accepted, according to a former president of a Native American student group.
Dr. Gavin Clarkson, a citizen of the Choctaw Nation who received both a doctorate and a law degree from Harvard while Warren was a professor, says he "personally invited" her three times to visit with Harvard's Native American Law Student Association (NALSA), which he headed while attaining his dual degree. Warren, who had identified as a minority in law professor directories and was touted by Harvard as a Native American hire, never accepted his invites.
"I was on campus at Harvard for five years, from 1998 to 2003," Clarkson said. "Warren was identified in the AALS law teacher directory as an American Indian faculty member."
"Hi, we're the Native American students on campus and it would be nice to meet the only Native American professor on the faculty," was the message Clarkson was attempting to get across, but he says he was dismissed by Warren every time.
"I personally invited Elizabeth Warren, face to face, three separate times," Clarkson said.
"I did it at least once per year for three straight years," he said. "She basically dismissed me all three times."
Warren's office did not respond to requests for comment on her interaction with NALSA while at Harvard.
The current leadership of Harvard's NALSA chapter says it has never invited Warren to speak, despite her thin ties to the Native American community.
"As far as I know, NALSA has never extended an invite to Elizabeth Warren despite her attenuated ties to the Native American community," said co-president Chris Childers, a member of the Echota Cherokee Tribe. "We have no plans to do so under the current leadership."
Clarkson's goal when he led the student group was to improve Harvard's outreach to the American Indian community, which he viewed as something Warren should have taken the lead on given her claimed heritage.
"We were constantly concerned about the fact that Harvard was doing a terrible job relative to peer institutions at recruiting American Indian students, despite the fact that Harvard was founded in its original charter to educate American Indians," Clarkson said.
"Part of it was they weren't putting in the effort to go out and recruit American Indian students, but usually if you have an American Indian on the faculty, that faculty member takes the lead on going out to Indian country and recruiting students," he said. "I don't know that Warren in the five years I was at Harvard ever stepped foot on a reservation."
Clarkson says he made clear to Warren during his interactions with her that the reason he was extending his invite to her was because her "reputation on campus was as the only Native American member of the faculty." On the other hand, he notes, other professors on the faculty who "cared about Indian students" would "meet with us all the time."
Clarkson says he knows of at least two other times Warren was invited to meet with NALSA by members on the other side of the political spectrum who were also dismissed.
Clarkson, who briefly was an official at the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs but resigned due to his failure to disclose his role in a controversial loan program, recently announced he was running for Congress in New Mexico.
An outspoken critic of Warren's treatment of the Native-American community, Clarkson says the senator is not "a supporter of tribal sovereignty." He points to the failure by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, an agency championed by Warren, to recognize tribal sovereignty as one of his major disappointments.
He said he encourages the attention President Donald Trump has directed toward Warren's false claims of Native-American ancestry, but would prefer he use the term "Fauxcahontas" rather than "Pocahontas."
Clarkson was at the National Congress of American Indians last week when Warren made a surprise appearance to defend her controversial claim of Native-American ancestry. He did not attend her speech.
Warren has been criticized for doubling down on the ancestry claims rather than acknowledging their dubious nature.
Hwy How Are Ya
Hey How Are Ya
Leslie Neilson in “Scary Movie 3” :)
She knew the REAL Native Americans would recognize her as a fraud and she would have been exposed. What a worthless pile she is.
Oops! Maybe her cheekbones weren’t high enough.
Squaw all wampum, no feathers.
Yep.
If you have no ‘skin in the game’ then ‘what difference does it make’?
Any person who puts ambition before integrity should not be entrusted with power over others.
Even if Warren thought the family stories she cites about her heritage were true, she should have had more integrity and been hesitant to use unsubstantiated family lore on an application. Even if verified (which to my knowledge her claims haven’t been), a small amount of ‘blood’ heritage with a minority group doesn’t make you underprivileged or deserving of special consideration. If all of us did genetic testing (e.g. ‘23 and Me) I’m sure some of us would find some previously unknown connection to a minority group of sorts. Would that justify describing yourself as a minority on an application? It’s ludicrous.
That’s an insult to worthless piles :)
Not to mention, she was disappointed there was no casino on the Res.
“We were constantly concerned about the fact that Harvard was doing a terrible job relative to peer institutions at recruiting American Indian students, despite the fact that Harvard was founded in its original charter to educate American Indians,” Clarkson said.
I resent the fact that someone can get special privileges solely based on the country of origin of a selected one of one’s ancestors.
If only one of your great great grandparents belonged to a government-certified victim group, YOU have special privileges, for nothing that you did.
On the other hand, if a person can’t trace any government-certified victims in one’s ancestry, he is $hit, and branded guilty of all the evils in the world.
Completely wrong!
She was in a bind. She could have spoken to them in her fluent Cherokee, but then she would offend the Choctaws and members of other tribes who wouldn’t be able to understand her, but if she insisted on speaking in English they would doubt her Cherokee ancestry.
Ah...that explains all the smoke signals emitted from her mouth, BS being universally understood.
That would make a great tag line.
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