A University of California Berkeley professor is facing calls to resign, after she admitted to mistakenly claiming Native American heritage throughout her career researching indigenous food sovereignty.
“In uncritically living an identity based on family stories without seeking out a documented connection to these communities, I caused harm,” Elizabeth M Hoover, an associate professor at the Berkeley school of Environmental Science, Policy, and Mangement, said in a statement posted on her website on Monday. “I hurt Native people who have been my friends, colleagues, students and family, both directly through fractured trust and through activating historical harms.”
The professor said she was raised being told by family members that she descended from members of the Mohawk and Mi’kmaq tribes, but failed to investigate whether those ties in fact existed.
“Before taking part in programs or funding opportunities that were identity-related or geared toward under-represented people I should have ensured that I was claimed in return by the communities I was claiming,” added. “By avoiding this inquiry, I have received academic fellowships, opportunities, and material benefits that I may not have received had I not been perceived as a Native scholar.”
The scholar said she does not plan to resign, but is working with restorative justice facilitators to “better understand how members of the UC Berkeley campus community have felt harmed and betrayed, and ways I can work to...
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