Apparently the university is already aware of Susan Taffee Reed's fibs about her racial background. It looks like the local newspaper has picked it up. Here's an article
http://dartblog.com/ My Bold.
Dartmouth Native American Program Director Under Fire By Rob Wolfe
Valley News Staff Writer
Friday, September 18, 2015
(Published in print: Friday, September 18, 2015)
Hanover — Native American advocates are raising questions about the way Dartmouth College’s new director of the Native American Program has represented both her ancestry and tribal affiliation.
The advocates say that Susan Taffe Reed, who began work on Sept. 1, is neither biologically native nor a member of a federally recognized tribe, and accuse her of “cultural appropriation.” College officials have stood behind Taffe Reed, who denies the claims and says she has been forthright about her personal and professional experiences.
Dartmouth announced in a Sept. 11 news release that Taffe Reed, “an ethnomusicologist and
the president of the Eastern Delaware Nations,” recently had taken over the college’s services for Native American students. The controversy over her hiring was first reported by insidehighered.com on Thursday.
The federal government recognizes three Delaware tribes as descendants of Native Americans expelled hundreds of years ago from their ancestral homelands.
The Eastern Delaware Nations, despite its nonprofit status, has not received state or federal recognition , according to the Eastern Delaware Nations’ website. “She’s using the Delaware name, and that’s not OK with us,” Nicky Michael, a member of the federally recognized Delaware Tribal Council, said by phone Thursday. “We’ve not given the permission or the right to do it.”
Native American advocates have scrutinized Taffe Reed’s ancestry, which they say does not include Native American heritage, as well as the organization she runs.
“I personally have no problem with a non-Indian getting the job on her own merits,” Keely Squirrel Denning, a Shawnee tribe member who researched Taffe Reed’s origins, said in a telephone interview. Misrepresenting one’s background, however, is a “slap in the face,” Denning said.
Denning, who said she based her research mainly on death certificates, rebutted Taffe Reed’s claimed ancestral ties to the Eastern Delaware Nations. Denning found Taffe Reed’s grandfather was a member of the Eastern Delaware Nations, but his parents appeared to be Irish immigrants.
Through a college spokeswoman, Taffe Reed said that Denning’s genealogical study had not been accurate, though she did not specify the inaccuracies.
“Susan Taffe Reed is of Native and European heritage,” spokeswoman Diana Lawrence said in a statement. “She has never represented herself as a member of a federal- or state-recognized tribe. She was transparent about her professional and personal experience throughout the search process. We are satisfied with the information she provided and are confident in her qualifications for this position.”
The statement also noted that it is illegal to hire a candidate or deny employment based on ethnicity. Advocates and college officials alike agreed that Native American ancestry should not be a requirement for the college job.
Dartmouth’s news release, which praises Taffe Reed’s “leadership roles in her Delaware tribal community,” does not mention the Eastern Delaware Nations’ recognition status. The disagreement over tribal identity is rooted in a history of Native American persecution by European settlers.
Members of the Eastern Delaware Nations, according to the group’s website, mostly “are descendants of Native Americans who lived in the Endless Mountains Region of Northeastern Pennsylvania and resisted being removed.”“Some EDN members are not of Native American descent,” the website reads, “but join as social members in support of a family member or to assist EDN in educational outreach and other activities.” Taffe Reed, who holds a doctorate in musicology and Native American studies, has made the history of the Pennsylvania region a focus of her research.
“My most recent academic scholarship is about powwow music and dance, and the experience of Native peoples in the mountains of Pennsylvania,” she said in a statement. “It is a diverse group of people with a rich oral history and body of experience to share. I look forward to sharing my work and my experience with the Dartmouth community. It is simply inaccurate to say that there are no people of Native American descent in Pennsylvania.”
But not everyone sees it that way. In the opinion of Michael, who lives in Oklahoma with many other card-holding tribe members, the Delawares left the East Coast long ago — and none remain.
“For people to say they hid out, that’s much more questionable,” Michael said, “and to say that they hid out for 400 years? That’s hard to believe. If you ask our elders, they’ll say, ‘We didn’t leave anybody behind.’ ”N. Bruce Duthu, a Native American studies professor who chaired the Dartmouth search committee that selected Taffe Reed, defended the hire in a statement provided Thursday to the Valley News.
“Susan openly acknowledged that she is a person of mixed ancestry and identity, including Native ancestry,” Duthu said. “In the case of Native peoples (and other people of color), state records, including birth and death certificates, are notoriously unreliable sources of information about personal background. Likewise, there are serious problems with reliance on notions of ‘federal recognition’ as a measure of ‘authenticity’ since the standards for such recognition have been widely and consistently criticized by Native and non-Native scholars and activists alike ever since they were promulgated in 1978.”
Michele Leonard, a member of Eastern Long Island’s Shinnecock Indian Nation, acknowledged that “who gets to decide who is Native American” was a complex matter. Leonard said her own tribe only received federal recognition as recently as 2010, after 40 years of litigation, despite having had state recognition for far longer.
But where the Eastern Delaware Nations was concerned, there was less ambiguity, she said.
Leonard said the case reminded her of Rachel Dolezal, the former president of the NAACP’s chapter in Spokane, Wash., who represented her race as black, despite being biologically white.
Comparing Taffe Reed to Dolezal, Leonard said by phone Thursday, “when an individual claims to be something they’re not, and then uses the parts of that culture to gain funding or advancement ... they seize it for themselves, and they deny it to those that are deserving.”
In her statement, Taffe Reed focused on Dartmouth’s students and the lessons they stood to learn.
“Our students reflect the broad diversity of Native communities, histories and experiences,” she said. “(M)y goal as director is to support their educational experience and personal development. I am concerned about ways in which questions of identity and authenticity affect them. Sadly, (this) is a teachable moment that enables our students to reflect on the complex history and issues of identity in Indian Country.”
Rob Wolfe can be reached at rwolfe@vnews.com or 603-727-3242.
Correction
Susan Taffe Reed is the new director of Dartmouth College’s Native American Program, a student affairs department. A headline in an earlier version of this story incorrectly referred to an academic program at the college
