#MASen Update: Filings Add to Questions on Warren’s Ethnic Claims

As controversy continues to build around Harvard Professor Elizabeth Warren, and Warren continues to refuse to release any records related to her academic career, it’s becoming more clear why that might be.  In a front page story today, the Boston Globe details how over at least six straight years either Warren or Harvard Law School officials – or both – falsely promoted her as a Native American minority in federally mandated diversity statistics that are filed with the Department of Labor.  The Globe notes that this came at a time when “the school was under intense pressure to diversify its faculty.”  Notably, as has been the case for the last four weeks as this controversy has been building, “the Warren campaign declined Thursday to answer the Globe’s specific questions about the documents.”

The Globe’s revelations come one day after a combative press conference that an angry and defensive Warren held with the Boston media at her campaign event in Brookline on Thursday.  As NPR Boston reported – “Warren Continues Sidestepping Questions About Why Harvard Called Her A Minority.”

Here’s just part of Warren’s exchange with the Boston press corps yesterday.

Filings add to questions on Warren’s ethnic claims

From the Boston Globe:

US Senate candidate Elizabeth Warren has said she was unaware that Harvard Law School had been promoting her purported Native American heritage until she read about it in a newspaper several weeks ago.

But 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.

In addition, both Harvard’s guidelines and federal regulations for the statistics lay out a specific definition of Native American that Warren does not meet.

The documents suggest for the first time that either Warren or a Harvard administrator classified her repeatedly as Native American in papers prepared for the government in a way that apparently did not adhere to federal diversity guidelines. They raise further questions about Warren’s statements that she was unaware Harvard was promoting her as Native American.

The Warren campaign declined Thursday to answer the Globe’s specific questions about the documents. In a statement, Warren’s spokeswoman, Alethea Harney, said that “over the past month Elizabeth has answered countless questions openly while the people who recruited her have made it clear it was because of her extraordinary skill as a teacher and a groundbreaking scholar.’’

‘Over the past month, Elizabeth has answered countless questions openly.’

In recent weeks, Warren has repeatedly said that her race was not a factor in her hiring at Harvard or elsewhere, a point that several colleagues and supervisors at the schools have publicly supported. There is nothing in the federally required documents that contradicts those statements.