Hal Lambert argues at Real Clear Politics that Harvard University ought to clear up the controversy surrounding Democratic presidential contender Elizabeth Warren‘s professional past.
Elizabeth Warren is beginning to solidify herself as a top-tier candidate in the Democrat primary. She has been forced to backtrack on her decades-long claims of being a woman of color, but Harvard still has not done the same. Why has Harvard not set the record straight?
In 1993, Harvard Law School offered Warren a highly coveted tenured professor job. The record is clear as to how she obtained the offer — Harvard had been the subject of a discrimination lawsuit at the time regarding its hiring practices, and the school was openly trying to hire women and people of color at its law school.
Warren did not begin her job until 1995 due to “family reasons,” but shortly after she started, Harvard Law School News Director Mike Chmura began touting her as the first woman of color to be given tenure at the institution. …
… Public reports continued to list a single native American professor at the school intermittingly until 2011. The U.S. Department of Labor requires large employers like Harvard to collect diversity statistics annually. Based on public reporting, it is likely that Harvard reported Warren as a minority to the U.S. government during her time.
Looking at a timeline history from the law school’s own website, it lists many minority achievements, such as the first female president of the Harvard Law Review, the first black president of the Harvard Law Review (Barack Obama), and the first woman dean (Elena Kagan). But the school is noticeably silent on something it so publicly touted for decades – the first tenured female minority law school professor.
