General Discussion

which, it turns out, she did--but quite remotely.

The issue is that she consistently identified herself as Native American (or "American Indian" ) on official documents and in official capacities: on her application for the Texas Bar, and at the University of Pennsylvania and at Harvard Law School. In other words, she hasn't just claimed to have Native ancestry or heritage. She claimed to be Native American.

That's a little crazy. My actual grandparents (not my 4th great grandparents or 8th great grandparents) on one side were from Hungary. I grew up eating my grandma's paprikash and goulash and her incredible dobos tortes. My grandparents spoke Hungarian, though I never learned a word. But I would never list myself as Hungarian on an official document.

Or I think about my son, who did the 23andMe thing about 9 years ago, before it was well known. His report came back as being 99.6% European Ashkenazic Jewish, which made us laugh (though we were hardly surprised; just a little scared at the thought of being so inbred). I don't know what that other .4% was, but say it was Chinese (yes, when some of my husband's relatives on his father's side fled Europe they ended up settling in China: one of them could have married a Chinese person). Would he rightfully have claimed to be Chinese on his college application?