|
?:reviewBody
|
-
In October 2014, a meme targeting Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) began to circulate on social media sites. In it, Warren is framed as hypocritically exploiting programs aimed at Native Americans to achieve wealth and political power. Examples cited included her purported ownership of a $5.4 million mansion and a high-paying gig at Harvard University supposedly achieved solely due to her claim of possessing a small amount of Native American heritage: The image (which concluded with a reminder of Warren's positions against concentrating power disproportionately amidst the very wealthy) packed a number of claims into one small statement, the first being the value of Warren's Boston-area home. Public real estate records suggest Warren's house is not by any means what one might imagine a mansion to be, boasting a modest four bedrooms and three to three-and-a-half baths. Warren's home last sold in 1995 for less than $500,000, and market estimates currently vary quite a bit for its potential resale value. It's fair to say average Americans would find homes in Warren's neighborhood to be out of their price range, and assessments of the value of Warren's home hover between one and two million dollars, far under the $5.4 million cited in the image above. It's possible the estimate came from the range in which Warren listed her home on standard disclosure forms in 2011 [PDF], a pre-set checkbox field that indicates a value anywhere between one and five million dollars. Although at one point, Warren did draw a large salary for teaching at Harvard (her 2011 campaign disclosure form indicates a salary for 2010-2011 of $429,981 although her paperwork doesn't indicate how many classes she was actually teaching), her 2013 tax filings [PDF] indicated that she left in January of that year (when she was sworn in to her Senate post), only retaining an agreement to be able to store some materials at the university and retain an honorary title of emeritus professor. A Harvard Computer Society (HCS) document held Warren's salary was $192,550 at an unspecified juncture, along with $133,453 in other compensation. The claim about Warren's use of her Native American heritage to obtain a high-paying job at Harvard University appears to date from her 2012 bid against incumbent Scott Brown for his Senate seat. Brown alleged during a debate in 2012: The legitimacy of Warren's claims to Native American heritage has certainly been challenged by many critics, and it is true that while Warren was at U. Penn. Law School she put herself on the Minority Law Teacher list as Native American) in the faculty directory of the Association of American Law Schools, and that Harvard Law School at one time promoted Warren as a Native American faculty member. But specific evidence that she gained her position at Harvard (at least in part) through her claims to Native American heritage is lacking. Warren denied applying for special consideration as a person of Native American heritage during her career, and when the matter was examined in 2012 in response to Brown's claims, people with whom Warren had worked similarly denied her ancestral background's factoring into the professional opportunities afforded her: Warren responded she was recruited for the positions and did not apply for them; and for the most part, her record did not indicate any identification as part of a minority group: In September 2018, the Boston Globe published the results of an investigation over whether Warren was hired at Harvard because had decided to self-identify as a Native American woman and Harvard saw a chance to diversify the law faculty. The Globe concluded that: In October 2018, Senator Warren released a controversial report on a DNA analysis that was said to show a pure Native American ancestor appeared in her ancestry in the range of six to 10 generations ago. In February 2019 the Washington Post surfaced Warren’s 1986 registration card for the State Bar of Texas, on which she identified her race as American Indian. In August 2019, Senator Warren apologized for harm caused by her past claims to tribal heritage.
(en)
|
![[This page as RDF]](http://data.gesis.org/claimskg/static/rdf-icon.gif){kind=icon}