Warren Admits Claiming Minority Status

Elizabeth Warren, the Democratic party’s front-runner in the campaign against incumbent Massachusetts Republican Sen. Scott Brown, admitted for the first time that she claimed minority status as a Native American at Harvard University and the University of Pennsylvania, the Boston Globe reported.

Warren still continued to say that race was not a factor in her recruitment at the universities. “At some point after I was hired by them, I . . . provided that information to the University of Pennsylvania and Harvard,’’ she said in a statement issued by her campaign and reported by the Globe. “My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it, and I have been open about it.’’

Warren’s reversal of course came after the Globe obtained documents from Harvard’s library which identified her as a Native American professor as part of federal statistics for the 1992-93 school year, her first year at the school.

Warren’s rival, Marisa DeFranco is trying to get Warren to agree to a series of primary debates. The Massachusetts Democratic primary is on Sept. 6. “I’ve been asking her to debate me since January, and she’s turned me down,” DeFranco told the Boston Herald.

Meanwhile, Warren received the endorsement yesterday of Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick, a Democrat, just three days before delegates vote in the state convention, which drew criticism from DeFranco, reported the Boston Herald.

“The choice should be in the hands of the people,” DeFranco told the Herald. “At the beginning of the 20th century we had party bosses who made decisions for us in smoke-filled rooms, but primaries were born out of the displeasure with that process.”