Is Elizabeth Warren An Indian Giver?

[NOTE: This post has been UPDATED three four times]

The Online Slang Dictionary defines “Indian Giver” as “a person who gives something, only to take it away later.” In my Forum piece on Minding The Campus this morning, “Elizabeth Warren: A Native American Now and Then,” I don’t quite call her one … but I came very close to doing so — actually, to calling both Harvard and Warren Indian Givers — because she gave herself, and Harvard gave her, Native American status only to take it away later.

I didn’t because — in what seemed like a good idea at 2:00 am this morning when I sent off the final version — I didn’t want a snarky slur to detract attention from my main point, which is that Warren’s explanations of what she did and didn’t do and especially the defense of her by all of her law school employers clearly reveal the hypocritical corruption at the core of affirmative action as it is currently practiced.

I hope you’ll read the piece to see what I mean.

UPDATE

David Bernstein on Volokh makes one of the points I made in my piece: the hypocrisy (my word, not Bernstein’s) of spokespeople for elite law schools “who would normally trumpet law school diversity efforts that consider ‘minority’ status a plus for faculty hiring expressing dismay that anyone would wonder whether dubious minority status was claimed because it might be be a plus for hiring.” Ann Althouse and James Taranto make similar points here , here, and here.

UPDATE II

“Desperately scrambling to validate Democrat Elizabeth Warren’s Native American heritage amid questions about whether she used her minority status to further her career,” the Boston Herald now reports, “the Harvard Law professor’s campaign last night finally came up with what they claim is a Cherokee connection — her great-great-great-grandmother.”

So, the formerly white bread Professor Warren (except for her early years of career-building when she listed herself as a minority) apparently is Cherokee after all, if being 1/32 Cherokee really is Cherokee. DISCRIMINATING minds wonder if being 1/32 DPM (Diversity-Providing Minority) is minority enough to provide enough diversity to justify preferential treatment in admissions and hiring.

On this and related issues, especially interesting nuggets about other diversity controversies at Harvard Law School, see Hans Bader’s excellent post here.

UPDATE III

Thanks to InstaPundit for link.

UPDATE IV

Also thanks to Todd Zywicki for his link on Volokh.