A self-described Native American professor admitted Thursday that she has no proof of her alleged Native American identity, according to a mea culpa posted to the professor’s website.
University of California, Berkeley Professor Elizabeth Hoover published a statement on her personal website stating that she had inaccurately identified as a member of the Mohawk and Mi’kmaq tribes throughout her entire life and professional career. Hoover attributed her inaccurate identity to family lore passed down from her parents.
“While it is clear that racial identifications in census records are complicated and sometimes unclear … we have to date found no records of tribal citizenship for any of my family members in the tribal databases that were accessed,” Hoover said.
The professor stated that she was never “eligible for tribal enrollment due to blood quantum requirements.”
Elizabeth (Liz) Hoover, professor at UC-Berkeley, is latest academic to admit to falsely claiming Indigenous identity. https://t.co/FUQOx3wIlU
Hoover became a professor at UC Berkeley in 2020 and was lauded for her alleged minority status. The university released a statement celebrating a diversity cluster hire and quoted Hoover, describing her as a “new Native American faculty member in ESPM and one of 11 self-identified Native American/Alaska Native ladder-rank faculty members at Berkeley.”
Despite no evidence that the professors descended from the two tribes, Hoover’s 2020 curriculum vitae highlights her work with Native American communities. She also focuses on environmental justice issues. (RELATED: NPR Laments ‘Pretending To Be Indian For A Job Or College’ For 30 Minutes But Never Mentions One Very Famous Fake Indian)
Indianz, a Native-run news publication, compared Hoover’s alleged identity with individuals highlighted by filmmaker Drew Hayden Taylor’s “The Pretendians.” The Canadian-based documentary highlights people who falsely assert a Native identity.
“Your past activities, in most cases, are irrelevant to your claims because your activities, your achievements are built on false claims,” Taylor told Indianz. “Therefore, they’re not as beneficial as you would think because it’s through lies, essentially.”
The College Fix noted that Taylor’s research led to the resignation of a Canadian scholar who falsely claimed to be “indigenous.”
Earlier this week, the sisters of recently-deceased Native American activist Sacheen Littlefeather claimed that she was an “ethnic fraud.” The sisters spoke to the San Francisco Chronicle, claiming that Littlefeather was actually of Mexican heritage.
Hoover and UC Berkeley did not respond to the Daily Caller’s request for comment.
* Article from: The Daily Caller