Wealthy class warrior Elizabeth Warren falsely denied having touted herself professionally as a minority

She denied having used her small amount of American Indian heritage on job applications, while concealing the fact that she had listed herself for 15 years on professional directories as a minority.

The story comes from the Boston Herald:

Despite claiming she never used her Native American heritage when applying for a job, Elizabeth Warren’s campaign admitted last night the Democrat listed her minority status in professional directories for years when she taught at the University of Texas and the University of Pennsylvania.

From 1986 to 1995, Warren’s name is included in the Association of American Law Schools’ annual directory of minority law teachers, according to records obtained by the Herald.

The campaign for GOP U.S. Sen. Scott Brown last night called for Warren to “come clean.”

“This story raises serious questions about Elizabeth Warren’s credibility. The record now shows Prof. Warren did claim to be a ‘minority,’ and that she attempted to mislead the public about these facts when she was first asked about the issue last week,” said Brown spokesman Jim Barnett. “Prof. Warren needs to come clean about her motivations for making these claims and explain the contradictions between her rhetoric and the record.”

But the Warren campaign insisted the candidate did nothing wrong.

“The simple fact is that Elizabeth is proud of her heritage,” Warren’s campaign said in a statement to the Herald. “Charles Fried, the former solicitor general in the Reagan administration, played a key role in her recruitment to Harvard and confirmed that her heritage was not a factor in her hiring. The fact that she listed her heritage in some professional directories more than 15 years ago does not change those facts.”

The Herald reported Friday that embattled Harvard Law School officials touted Warren’s Native American heritage—she reportedly has ancestors from the Cherokee and Delaware tribes—as proof of the faculty’s diversity.

The Warren campaign has said the U.S. Senate candidate never allowed Harvard Law to claim her as a minority hire. Warren herself has said she could not “recall” ever listing her Native American background when applying for college or a job.

But universities likely would have had access to the directories listing Warren as a minority. The Association of American Law Schools describes its directory as the “most used ‘desk book’ of deans and law teachers.”

Posted by Lawrence Auster at April 30, 2012 08:52 AM | Send