Berkeley Professor Apologizes For Claiming Native Heritage

BERKELEY, CA — An associate professor at UC Berkeley apologized this week for falsely claiming to be Native American for her "whole life," following criticisms and calls for her resignation from the community.

According to The Mercury News, UC Berkeley hired Elizabeth Hoover, an anthropologist and expert on environmental health and food justice in Native American communities, in 2020. Despite claiming to be a descendant of Mohawk and Mi'kmaq people for decades, she wrote Monday that turned out to be false.

"I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as Native my whole life, based on incomplete information," Hoover wrote in a statement. "In uncritically living an identity based o family stories without seeking a documented connection to these communities, I caused harm. I hurt Native people who have been my friends, colleagues, students, and family, both directly through fractured trust and through activating historical harms."

Hoover continued to apologize for neglecting "due diligence" to confirm the things she was told as a child and outlined a series of commitments to make amends, including shelving her Native regalia and donating funds back into the community.

According to the Daily Mail, a group of more than 300 students and professors are still calling for Hoover to resign. The school said they were aware of the issue and "supports ongoing efforts to achieve restorative justice."