Andrea Smith

Andrea Lee Smith is an American academic, feminist, and activist. Smith's work has primarily focused on issues of violence against women of color and their communities, specifically Native American women. Formerly an assistant professor of American Culture and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, she is also a co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, the Boarding School Healing Project, and the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations.

Smith worked as a professor in the Department of Ethnic Studies at University of California, Riverside. In August 2023, the university announced that she would resign from the university in August 2024 to become an emerita professor, due to charges that she "made fraudulent claims to Native American identity in violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct provisions concerning academic integrity."

Since at least 1991, Smith has claimed to be Cherokee. However, she has never been enrolled in a recognized Cherokee tribe, and genealogist David Cornsilk, who has said Smith hired him twice to research her claims of heritage, found no evidence of Cherokee ancestry for Smith. The controversy over Smith's claim to be Cherokee received relatively little attention outside academic circles until 2015, when her claim was more widely publicized in more mainstream media outlets.

Early life and education Smith was born to Helen Jean Wilkinson and Donald R. Smith She has one sister, Justine Wilson (Smith), she is the pastor at Norman First American United Methodist Church. In 2002, she received her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz; her dissertation was on the Bible, gender, and nationalism in both the American Indian communities and among activists of the Christian Right.

Activism and professional work Smith has long been active in anti-violence activism, serving as a rape crisis counselor and starting the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations. Along with Nadine Naber, Smith co-founded INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence in 2000, and she plays a prominent role in its National Planning Committee. INCITE! is a national grassroots organization that engages in direct action and critical dialogue to end violence against women of color and their communities.

Smith was also a founding member of the Boarding School Healing Project (BSHP). According to its website, the BSHP "seeks to document Native boarding school abuses so that Native communities can begin healing ... and demand justice." Smith has worked with Amnesty International as a Bunche Fellow, coordinating the research project on sexual violence and American Indian women. She represented the Indigenous Women's Network and the American Indian Law Alliance at the United Nations World Conference Against Racism in 1991. As of March 2013, Smith serves as the U.S. Coordinator for the Ecumenical Association of Third World Theologians.

Smith and her sister Justine were faculty members at the North American Institute for Indigenous Theological Studies.

Critical work Smith's work makes a critical intervention in Native American Studies which she argues has a tendency to dismiss patriarchy as outside the purview of analysis of Native scholarship. Most Native scholars dismiss patriarchy because they identify it as a uniquely Western manifestation forced onto Native populations through assimilation. Smith argues that despite the fact that patriarchy is not intrinsic to Native society, its fundamental importance in the domination and extermination of Native peoples and Native women in particular should not be discounted.

Awards Gustavus Myers Outstanding Book Award (2005) for Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide California State University (Northridge) Phenomenal Woman Award (2010)

Controversies

Tenure denial On February 22, 2008, Smith was denied tenure from the College of Literature, Science and the Arts at the University of Michigan. This decision attracted "an unusual degree of attention from scholars, both at Ann Arbor and nationally." Some 30 faculty and students concluded "the University's tenure evaluation process discriminates against women of color and interdisciplinary professors."

Smith's misrepresentations about her identity also played a role in the tenure dispute. Cherokee genealogist David Cornsilk stated that Smith "told [him] her employment depended on finding proof of Indian heritage." When she was denied tenure by the University of Michigan, she suggested discrimination on the basis of her "Native American descent".

Cherokee ancestry claim Since at least 1991, Smith has publicly claimed to be Cherokee although she has never been enrolled in any federally recognized Cherokee tribe, and no Cherokee ancestry has ever been found for her. Native lawyer Steve Russell (Cherokee Nation) publicly accused Smith of ethnic fraud in a 2008 editorial published by Indian Country Today, but it was not widely read. Smith failed to set the record straight, and her lack of documented Cherokee descent became "something of an open secret" until 2015. She continued to be identified at professional events as Cherokee or Native American, and claimed it was part of the reason for her denial of tenure at the University of Michigan (see above). Following the media attention surrounding activist Rachel Dolezal in 2015, who falsely claimed African-American identity, an anonymous Tumblr blog entitled Andrea Smith is not Cherokee, was published, listing a chronology of book and conference biographies of Smith that refer to her purported Cherokee ancestry.

The Daily Beast picked up Smith's story, and it attracted national attention. The Daily Beast dubbed Smith "the Native American Rachel Dolezal". Cornsilk has written that "fact speaks loud and clear that not only is Andrea Smith not enrolled, SHE IS NOT A CHEROKEE". An open letter, signed by twelve Native American women scholars, reads in part, "Asking for accountability to our communities and collectivities is not limited to Andrea Smith. Asking for transparency, self-reflexivity, and honesty about our complex histories and scholarly investments is motivated by the desire to strengthen ethical Indigenous scholarship by both Indigenous and non-Indigenous scholars." They also noted the names of numerous Indigenous scholars who have made contributions in the same field as Smith, saying that they had sometimes been overlooked. King added that "it is Smith’s deception—not her enrollment status and not her advocacy—that constitutes the central issue.'

Smith's sister, Justine, has also claimed Cherokee ancestry and is likewise accused of ethnic fraud. She allegedly falsified a tribal card of the Cherokee Nation. Justine, who has the same parents as Andrea, also claims Ojibwe heritage.

Andrea Smith responded to the protests and accusations in July 2015 with a statement on her blog asserting that her "enrollment status does not impact [her] Cherokee identity," and that she always has been and always will be Cherokee.

In August 2023, Smith's employer, the University of California, Riverside, announced in a press release that Smith would resign from the university with effect in August 2024. Thirteen faculty members at Riverside alleged that Smith had "made fraudulent claims to Native American identity in violation of the Faculty Code of Conduct provisions concerning academic integrity." While Smith denied the charges, the "separation agreement and release of all claims," with the resignation/retirement date, was mutually agreed to by Smith and the University.

Selected publications Smith is the author of the following books: Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide (2005) Native Americans and the Christian Right: The Gendered Politics of Unlikely Alliances (2008) Unreconciled: From Racial Reconciliation to Racial Justice in Christian Evangelicalism, Duke University Press (2019)

Smith edited and/or co-edited the following anthologies: The Color of Violence: The INCITE! Anthology (2006) The Revolution Will Not Be Funded: Beyond the Non-Profit Industrial Complex (2007) Theorizing Native Studies, Duke University Press (2014) Native Studies Keywords, University of Arizona Press (2015) Evangelical Theologies of Liberation and Justice, InterVarsity Press (2019) Otherwise Worlds, Duke University Press (2020)