Professor resigns after outrage over false claims of Native American roots

Andrea Smith, an ethnic studies scholar at a California university, had faced decades of criticism for claiming Cherokee heritage

An ethnic studies professor at the University of California, Riverside, will resign next year following more than a decade of outrage over accusations that she falsely claimed Indigenous American heritage.

Andrea Smith, once a heralded scholar of Native American studies, faced criticism since at least 2008 for claiming she was Cherokee but had remained employed at the southern California university. Last year, 13 of her colleagues at UC Riverside alleged that she made fraudulent claims to Indigenous American identity and violated academic integrity.