Mona Charen: Warren Highlights the Danger of Racial Identity

She was mocked as “Fauxcahontas” long before President Donald Trump began referring to her as “Pocahontas,” and frankly, Sen. Elizabeth Warren invited the ridicule. She is a poster child for the pitfalls of basing identity on race, and reminds us of the many furies such self-definition can unleash.

What people choose to call themselves shouldn’t matter to outsiders. If I want to call myself a post-Jerseyite dog lover, no one would care — unless there is affirmative action for former Jersey residents who can’t skip dog videos on Twitter.

What made Elizabeth Warren infuriating is that she was gaming the system. There is a clear career advantage at leading law schools, as in other institutions, to being a member of a minority. Warren apparently secured a position at the University of Pennsylvania Law School without the minority credential. But while at Penn, she dusted off some “family lore” and began to list herself as Native American. Who knows if this helped get her a slot at Harvard Law? As columnist Jeff Jacoby has reported, Harvard highlighted Warren as a Native American when it was accused of lacking a diverse faculty, and the Fordham Law Review bestowed on the blond-haired, blue-eyed Warren the title “Harvard Law’s first woman of color.” Seriously.

More