MA GOP Calls For Harvard Investigation Of Warren’s Minority Status

[ProSense]

MA GOP Calls For Harvard Investigation Of Warren’s Minority Status

The Chair of the Massachusetts Republican Party Bob Maginn sent a letter to the president of Harvard asking for an investigation into Elizabeth Warren’s minority status at the university. The MA GOP and Scott Brown’s campaign have been attacking Warren for being listed as a minority because her great, great, great grandmother was Cherokee. The letter alleges “academic fraud” on Warren’s part by Harvard’s own standards of “academic honesty in the law school’s statement of community principles.” At the end, the letter touches on whether Warren received any special treatment or “advantages” because of her minority status.

The letter concludes: “Harvard must investigate Ms. Warren’s false claims to be a minority; how it came to pass that Harvard accepted these claims; and the extent to which Ms. Warren’s alleged minority status afforded her advantages to which she would not otherwise have been entitled.”

http://livewire.talkingpointsmemo.com/entries/ma-gop-calls-for-harvard-investigation-of-warrens

It's time to tell the GOP to go to hell!

[rfranklin]

1. Harvard has to answer to the Republican Party?

I thought they were a private institution.

Notice how it is an attack on "affirmative action" which is a longtime Republican hobby horse.

[catbyte]

2. This is BS

The Cherokee tribe is one tribe where if you have even one drop of Cherokee blood you're a Cherokee. If she has 1/32, then she did nothing wrong. My tribe requires you to prove at least 1/4 blood quantum in order to be considered a tribal member, but that's just us Ojibwas. It still pisses me off that we're the only racial group in America that are required to prove we are who we say we are.

Oh well, after 55 years I'm used to it...

Diane
Anishinaabe in MI & mom to Leo, Sophie, Taz & Nigel, members of Dogs Against Romney, Cat Division
"We ride inside--HISS!”

[Warpy]

7. That's how I understood it from coworkers

The Cherokees have always been a pragmatic people and were driven out of the Carolinas mostly because they were beating the white folks at their own game.

They realize people are not horses and that culture trumps bloodlines every single time.

I'm a proud mongrel with Mohawks sitting cozily in my family tree. However, my culture is Irish, bad temper and all.

[ProgressiveProfessor]

9. Hawaiians are the same way

Its required to attend Kam Schools if nothing else.

[gratuitous]

3. And if she hadn't checked the box?

The Republicans would be screaming that she's "ashamed of her heritage" or some such nonsense. I agree: Harvard should politely but firmly advise the Massachusetts GOP to go to hell by the most direct route available.

[Scuba]

4. I love the smell of Republican desperation in the morning.

[KharmaTrain]

6. When You Can't Run On Issues...You Go With Diversions...

The game here is to muddy up Warren anyway they can. It's been a successful rushpublican technique...throw as much mud as you can and hope enough sticks to drive down her positives. Any little mistep she makes, any faux pas will be made not just a state but national issue as the hope is the longer they attack and the more that's piled on the impression of sleeze sets in. I'm hoping that Prof. Warren stays on her current message...Snotty and his SuperPac buddies look smaller with each attack.

[Arkana]

5. Warren should run an ad

that says something to the effect of "Scott Brown is so terrified of me that he's pawing through my Harvard papers for evidence that I lied about having Cherokee ancestry?"

[Scuba]

8. +1

[ProgressiveProfessor]

10. Racial/Minority identification is a really sticky thing

I'm black, my late wife was black. Upon our return to the US our daughters' "blackness" was challenged since they did not understand the social customs of urban African Americans. That did not make them any less black, but is upset some people quite badly.

Another example is Zimmerman, is he really Hispanic?

Is blood quantum the right answer which is used for American Indian tribes and Hawaiians? Note that it was also used in apartheid South Africa. With the current fad of DNA testing, who knows what might be found and claimed.

If you work for the US government, you can declare whatever you want when it comes to racial and ethnic identification on "official" paperwork. It cannot be challenged. If someone who is of European ancestry want to declare themselves a Hispanic Pacific Islander and their religion is Jedi, it will be accepted, recognized and counted.

Canada has the concept of "Visible Minority". Not sure how well that works...anybody have some insights?