New Documents Raise More Questions About Elizabeth Warren’s Ancestry
Published at
Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images(BOSTON) — The ongoing debate over whether or not Elizabeth Warren used her Native American ancestry as a way to advance her career got more confusing Thursday when a minority equity report from the University of Pennsylvania was unearthed, showing that the school also listed Warren as a minority faculty member.
One of the pages in the report lists professors who were awarded the Lindback Award for distinguished teaching. In the report, names of minority faculty members who won the award are displayed in a bold, italicized font. Warren received the award in 1994, and her name appears bold and italicized, indicating that the school listed Warren as a minority faculty member at some point.
Warren is 1/32 Native American, according to documents unearthed by genealogists at the New England Historic Genealogical Society.
There had been no reports indicating that Warren was listed as a minority by any of her employers besides Harvard prior to this one. It was known that Warren was listed as a minority in law school directories from 1986 to 1995.
The document begs the question: On what was the university basing its report? Was it the aforementioned law school directories or something else?
Republicans have suggested that Warren used her minority status to further her career in academia. Several of Warren’s past employers, including a colleague from the University of Pennsylvania, have said the status played no role in hiring decisions.
Earlier this week, Warren’s opponent in a race to represent Massachusetts in the U.S. Senate, Republican Sen. Scott Brown, called on Warren to release her personnel files from her past employers, saying that would be the best way for Warren to put the issue to rest.
A further potential source of questions for Warren was unearthed on Thursday by The Boston Globe, which reported that a personnel document from the University of Texas — where Warren taught law prior to joining the faculty at the University of Pennsylvania — showed that Warren listed herself as white when she taught at UT’s law school.
Polling shows Warren and Brown in a dead heat.
Copyright 2012 ABC News Radio