Hoover said she faced many accusations regarding her heritage throughout her career as a professor at Elizabethtown College, St. Olaf College and Brown University. Marlon Brando to refuse the best actor Oscar, a formal apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. "At the time, I interpreted inquiries into the validity of my Native identity as petty jealousy or people just looking to interfere in my life," she wrote. Her mother shared stories about her grandmother being a Mohawk woman who married an abusive French-Canadian man and who committed suicide, leaving her children behind to be raised by someone else. The controversy surrounding anthropologist Elizabeth Hoover has sparked calls for her resignation and concerns among her students and Native American scholars about UC Berkeley's academic. Elizabeth Hoover has admitted to professional misconduct, research ethics violations, harming Native students & colleagues, & violating tribal research sovereignty! Elizabeth Hoover, an anthropology associate professor at UC Berkeley, issued an apology Monday for falsely identifying as Indigenous in a letter on her website titled, " Letter of Apology and. At the time, Brown University used the land to house the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology. Elizabeth received a Master of Arts degree from Brown University and a Doctor of Philosophy . (Photo by Adam Sings in the Timber) Name: Elizabeth Hoover Discipline: Environmental science and policy management Degrees: B.A. It is wrong, it is tiresome and it is symptomatic of the ongoing ignorance and disrespect that the general public, not to mention institutions have regarding Indigenous peoples., Contact Amber X. Chen at[emailprotected]or @amberonradio on Twitter. Elizabeth HOOVER, Professor (Associate) | Cited by 171 | of University of California, Berkeley, CA (UCB) | Read 15 publications | Contact Elizabeth HOOVER Enter your school to get started. Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, said in an apology posted Monday on her website that she claimed an identity as a woman of Mohawk and Mi'kmaq descent but never confirmed that identity with those communities or researched her ancestry until recently. UC Berkeley professor Elizabeth Hoover apologizes for Native American claim edited by Thom Davies and Alice Mah,Manchester University Press. Desi Small-Rodriguez, an assistant professor of sociology at the University of California, Los Angeles, and a Native American, said on Twitter, Actually the opportunity to resign is not appropriate. 2017. In the piece, she wrote that growing up I did not question who I was told I was. But as an adult, as an academic, I should have done my due diligence to confirm that my ancestors were who I was told they were.. 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But the way people see me has, and the way I need to approach this work going forward now has changed.. Copyright 2023 Inside Higher Ed All rights reserved. Following the apology, Adrienne Keene, an assistant professor at Brown University and a Cherokee Nation citizen, who says she used to be friends with Hoover, wrote a letter on her own blog saying Hoovers story quickly fell apart when Keene first started looking into it over a year ago. Brown,Phil; Rachel Morello-Frosch, Stephen Zavestoski, Laura Senier, Rebecca Altman, Elizabeth Hoover, Sabrina McCormick, Brian Mayer, and Crystal Adams. Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, said in an apology posted Monday on her website that she claimed an identity as a woman of Mohawk and. Hoovers Twitter account, which hasnt been tweeted from since 2020, features multiple Native American protests the professor was a part of and the many food summits she attended. Some graduate schools dont let students borrow enough for basic needs like food and medicine, Aliya Sternstein and C, A now-former Pennsylvania State University system professor says a series of trainings and the campuss approach to g, Two preliminary investigation reports allege microaggressions, slights, double entendre and boorish behavior., A longtime faculty member at the medical school is being threatened with termination after interviews he gave to CNN. She continued, In uncritically living an identity based on family stories without seeking out a documented connection to these communities, I caused harm. Lots to unpack: tips for those considering visiting positions abroad, How to win at the part-time game in academia, Build community into the curriculum to improve in-person attendance. Professor at Cal-Berkley, Elizabeth Hoover, 'incorrectly - MSN 2 Student Ratings All courses Quality 5.0 Difficulty 2.0 SH548 awesome Dec 9th, 2012 Textbook: Yes Professor Hoover teaches the adult section of the course, and she does a great job with it. Jessica Krug in 2020 admitted to being white and faking being Black for her entire career and resigned from her associate professorship at George Washington University. Elizabeth Hoover at St. Olaf College | Rate My Professors This hurt has also interrupted student and faculty life and careers. Hoovers apology has been criticized by some as continuing to harm Native Americans, including by equating trauma in her own childhood with being Indigenous. Others, however, have called for her to resign or even to be fired. I acknowledge that I could have prevented all of this hurt by investigating and confirming my family stories sooner. Before her death, Littlefeather, whose birth name was Marie Louise Cruz, received a formal apology from the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences for mistreatment she faced at the Oscars decades earlier. Four years ago, ahead of her run for presidency, Senator Elizabeth Warren apologized to the Cherokee Nation after backlash following her release of DNA results in an attempt to prove that she had Native American ancestry from her familys generations in Oklahoma. Social Science Collaboration with Environmental Health. Environmental Health Perspectives DOI:10.1289 http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/1409283/, Hoover, Elizabeth. Edited by Mayer Zald, Jane Banaszak-Holl, and Sandra Levitsky. Rate My Professors | Find and rate your professor or school. I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as Native my whole life, based on incomplete information, Hoover wrote in the letter. 2011. In her statement, Hoover noted that in retrospect, she should have examined her identity sooner, but that throughout her life her identity was just a part of her and that since she knew she was not eligible for enrollment, locating official genealogical records did not seem important., However, Simpson challenged this, stating that Hoover should not have assumed her identity and that the basis of Mohawk personhood and nationhood are not pow wows and (unspecified) ceremonies as indicated in her statement., That is at a certain level a personal and representational issue, it is gross to see non-Indians dress up as a settler/fantasist version of you this is part of the everyday representational assault of living in North America as an Indigenous person, Simpson said in the email. Native Food Systems Impacted by COVID Journal of Agriculture and Human Values 37(3). Hoover began teaching at UC Berkeley in the fall of 2020 where said her identity was challenged for the first time. Hoover wrote a letter on behalf of the Native American Students Association at Brown denouncing the Pokanokets efforts. Before taking part in programs or funding opportunities that were identity-related or geared towards under-represented people I should have ensured that I was claimed in return by the communities I was claiming. Privacy Policy. It was based upon conceptions of federal recognition and misunderstandings of trust law, and how they apply to Indigenous folks. You have /5 articles left.Sign up for a free account or log in. Native American food systems and food sovereignty scholar Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor of environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley, is the latest professor to backtrack on claiming Native American identity. The letter was signed by hundreds of students and scholars from UC Berkeley and other universities along with members of Native American communities. A California professor who claimed she was Native American for her entire life has revealed she is white, apologizing for breaking the trust of the Native communities she lived alongside. She's very passionate about teaching the subject matter, which makes the class much better. @UCBerkeley must fire Elizabeth Hoover immediately., Meredith Alberta Palmer, a postdoctoral fellow at Cornell University, said on Twitter, All of her data was gathered under false pretenses for her entire career, and this is a blatant and basic research ethics violation. But for Watson and other Indigenous people alike, the damage has already been done. Members of Indigenous communities argue that this phenomenon capitalizes on their tribal ancestry for personal gain and acts as colonialism by another name. Hoover, who has published books and articles about Native American food sovereignty and other issues, said she never had proper documentation to confirm or dispute her claims of being Native American. Copyright 2023 The Daily Californian, The Independent Berkeley Student Publishing Co., Inc. All rights reserved. It was a research interest she came to naturally as the daughter of a Micmac and Mohawk family in upstate New York "Originally from Quebec," she said, "but everyone has . Elizabeth Hoover, an anthropology associate professor at UC Berkeley, issued an apology Monday for falsely identifying as Indigenous in a letter on her website titled, Letter of Apology and Accountability.. Indigenous Food Sovereignty in the United States: Restoring Cultural Knowledge, Protecting Environments, and Regaining Health. Her class is fun and for me it was only one class a week and the rest we work on individually with the due date being Sunday. Hoover claimed to be of Mohawk and Mikmaq descent, whose tribes were native to the northeastern part of the US and Canada. 2010. Elizabeth Hoover, who was hired as an associate professor in 2000 researching Native American food sovereignty, published a letter of apology on her personal website earlier this week. I hurt Native people who have been my friends, colleagues, students, and family, both directly through fractured trust and through activating historical harms, she said. Hoover added that the intentional decision to wrongfully take from marginalized communities is unconscionable. However, she said she does not believe she has done this because she was raised with a Native American identity, rather than coming into it later in life. In the initial statement, Hoover detailed how she grew up with the belief her great-grandmother was a Mohawk woman and was brought to pow-wows, ceremonies, and food summits to feel connected to her mothers family background. All Rights Reserved. (Uncredited/AP) Native American scholar Elizabeth Hoover, associate professor at the Essentially what I am currently left with is that I do not have any official documentation to verify the way my family has identified., She added in October that without any official documentation verifying the identity I was raised with, I do not think it is right for me to continue to claim to be a scholar of Mohawk/Mikmaq descent, even though my mother is insistent that she inherited this history for a reason. In response to some students reactions to her news on social media, Hoover said via email that I have worked hard to be as supportive as possible to the students I work with, and when I evaluate any student's work, it is based solely on the quality of that academic work alone., Higher education is no game, and accreditors are misguided referees, Kyle Beltramini writes in response to two recent. Isaac, Gwyneira; Joseph Gone, Jenny Joe, Elizabeth Hoover, Clarita Lefthand Begay, Stewart Hill. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10460-020-10089-7?wt_mc=Inter https://www.journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/RIAS/article/view/7391, https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP1944, http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/15/01/JCOM_1501_2016_A05, http://www.ecologicalprocesses.com/content/2/1/4/abstract, http://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/ehp.1205422.pdf. Hoover is not the first scholar for whom the issue of race was an issue. This apology, insufficient as I imagine it is, in light of all that has happened, is an initial step in my attempts to take accountability for the harms that Ive caused, in an effort to begin to acknowledge the hurt that people have felt as a result of my life and my actions.. In her apology issued Monday, Hoover acknowledged she benefited from programs and funding that were geared toward Native scholars and said she is committed to engaging in the restorative justice process taking place on campus, "as well as supporting restorative justice processes in other circles I have been involved with, where my participation is invited.". Hoover's alleged Indigenous roots came into question in 2021 after her name appeared on an "Alleged Pretendian List." Dr. Hoover is such an amazing professor. There are also multiple massive projects on niche/irrelevant composers. @RateMyProfessor. Berkeley professor Elizabeth Hoover apologizes for false Indigenous By claiming a false identity on grant and job applications, Hoover robbed Indigenous scholars of these opportunities, the letter said. White Berkeley professor apologizes for identifying as Indigenous I will say that this work was not particularly difficult nor did it require a lot of specialized knowledge her story fell apart very quickly, within a few clicks, but the subsequent months were spent trying every avenue to findsomethingthat would explain her claims, triangulating and triple checking, looking in new databases, finding more and new documents, or going back another generation, Keene wrote. I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as Native my whole life, based on incomplete information, Hoover said in the essay. Williams College, 2001; M.A., Brown University, 2003; Ph.D., Brown University, 2010 As such, I dont know if we can expect to see her make amends.. - visit ratemyprofessors.com I HIGHLY RECOMMEND ALL COLLEGE STUDENTS TO DO THIS FOR EVERYONES SAKE. Without any official documentation verifying the identity I was raised with, I do not think it is right for me to continue to claim to be a scholar of Mohawk/Mikmaq descent, even though my mother is insistent that she inherited this history for a reason, she said in the October post. She's hilarious, her lectures are captivating, she gives extra credit out all the time, and she loves cats. Other cases involve scholars pretending to be Black. She haspublished articles about food sovereignty, environmental reproductive justice in Native American communities, the cultural impact of fish advisories on Native communities, tribal citizen science, and health social movements. https://ehp.niehs.nih.gov/doi/10.1289/EHP1944, Hoover, Elizabeth. Elizabeth Hoover Professor in the Humanities department at University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee N/A Would take again Rate Professor Hoover I'm Professor Hoover Submit a Correction Professor Hoover doesn't have any ratings yet Be the first to rate Professor Hoover 0 Student Ratings Available at https://www.journals.us.edu.pl/index.php/RIAS/article/view/7391, Hoover, Elizabeth and Sean Sherman. This is all fantasist fraud and constitutes theft from minoritized peoples, alleged Audra Simpson, professor of anthropology at Columbia University, in an email. My second book projectFrom Garden Warriors to Good Seeds; Indigenizing the Local Food Movement (University of Minnesota Press, forthcoming)explores Native American farming and gardening projects around the country: the successes and challenges faced by these organizations, the ways in which participants define and envision concepts like food sovereignty, the importance of heritage seeds, the role of Native chefs in the food sovereignty movement, and convergences between the food sovereignty and anti-pipeline and anti-mining movements. She took my sisters and me to ceremonies and powwows as kids to connect us to our heritage, Hoover said. While it is clear that racial identifications in census records are complicated and sometimes unclear (especially since the only race-identifying options for a long time were white, black, and mulatto), we have to date found no records of tribal citizenship for any of my family members in the tribal databases that were accessed. UC Berkeley associate professor Elizabeth Hoover, who often worked with students in the campus Indigenous Community Learning Garden, released a statement Oct. 20 on her personal website. In Monday's letter, Hoover admitted she received academic fellowships, opportunities and material benefits that she may not have received if she didnt identify as Native. Prof. Elizabeth M. Hoover. Raquel Evita Saraswati, Rachel Dolezal and the scandal of pretending to be another race, What to know about the three stabbings in Davis, California, Your California Privacy Rights/Privacy Policy. For Tribal Peoples, Food Justice Requires Environmental Justice. In Lessons in Environmental Justice. Published online September 30 2017. My research focuses on Native American environmental health and food sovereignty movements. US professor apologizes after wrongly claiming to be Native American In this 2020 image taken from video, Elizabeth Hoover, UC Berkeley associate professor of environmental science, policy and management, conducts an interview with Indian Country Today. N/A / 5 No ratings yet. LeClaire apologized in a statement to Madison365, saying, What I can do now is offer change. DOI 10.17953/aicrj.41.3.hoover, Hoover, Elizabeth. Janet Gilmore, a UC Berkeley spokesperson, said in a statement she couldn't comment on whether Hoover faces disciplinary action, saying discussing it would violate "personnel matters and/or violate privacy rights, both of which are protected by law.". Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. Previousl y, Elizabeth was a Board Member at North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems and also held positions at St. Olaf College, Elizabethtown College.