User:Designate/Elizabeth Warren (rewrite)

In April 2012, the Boston Herald reported that in the 1990s Harvard Law School had, in response to criticisms about the lack of faculty diversity, publicized Warren's law directory entries from 1986 to 1995, in which she had self-identified as a Native American. Fact-checking efforts by the New England Historical Genealogical Society and the Washington Post found no evidence of Cherokee lineage in Warren's family history. Warren's claim drew criticism from the Brown campaign, which called on her to "come clean about her motivations for making these claims and explain the contradictions between her rhetoric and the record", and from several Cherokee groups. Warren maintained that Native American ancestry was a part of her family history, and that she had self-identified as a minority in the law directory listing in hopes of meeting people of a similar background. She denied receiving any professional advantage or preferential treatment as a result of her claimed ancestry. Charles Fried, a Harvard Law professor who was involved in Warren's hiring, said that her heritage was never mentioned and played no role in the decision.