Elizabeth Warren’s Native American Heritage Claims Debunked

Elizabeth Warren worked at the University of Texas from 1983-1987. She then took a job at the University of Pennsylvania where she remained until she started working at Harvard in 1992. 

While speaking as part of her 2012 senate campaign, Mrs Warren claimed to have Native American heritage. As proof of the claim that she was 1/32 Native American, Mrs Warren often spoke about remarks that her Aunt Bea would make about her father – Elizabeth Warren’s grandfather. This aunt would often point to a picture of Mrs Warren’s grandfather and remark about his high check bones and his native american appearance.

In 2012, it was revealed that while she was employed at Harvard and at the University of Pennsylvania, those institutions listed her as a minority. This raised concerns by political opponents that the native american claim may have given her an undue benefit in her academic career. Mrs Warren did admit that after being hired at these schools, she did inform them that she was native american and had herself listed on a register of minority hires. When questioned as to why she did this, she stated that she did so in the hopes that it might get her an invitation to a luncheon or a group with people who were like her, and that she ceased listing herself in that directory when this result was not achieved.

Native American researchers have looked at Mrs Warren’s history and found that the same “Aunt Bea” that spoke to Mrs Warren as a child about her Native American heritage was identified by Mrs Warren as “White” on her death certificate in 1999. They also discovered that Mrs Warren’s mother identified herself as “White” in a 1940 census.

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