The Atlantic

Elizabeth Warren’s DNA Is Not Her Identity

As a geneticist and a member of the Navajo Nation, I have some thoughts on the senator’s announcement.
Source: Kevin Lamarque / Reuters

After receiving a direct challenge from President Donald Trump to prove her Native American ancestry by submitting to a DNA test, Senator Elizabeth Warren released her results Monday morning. As an enrolled member of the Diné (Navajo) Nation, I obviously have some thoughts on this development. As a geneticist-bioethicist, I have even more. Whether or not Warren has genetic ties to indigenous peoples, she is not Native American, and her public gambit could dangerously obscure that distinction.

Warren did not use a

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