Elizabeth Warren to Meet With Native American Leaders in Oklahoma

The meeting, first reported by The Washington Post, will take place during Warren’s first campaign trip to Oklahoma, the state where she grew up. Most of the state’s federally recognized tribes were invited, according to a campaign official, and Warren plans to further discuss her policy vision, including a proposal she released in August to protect tribal lands and bolster funding for programs that serve Native people.

“Elizabeth is looking forward to meeting with tribal leaders to discuss ways they can continue to work together on many important issues facing Indian Country,” said Kristen Orthman, Warren’s communications director. “She believes in working on a nation-to-nation basis to uphold the United States’ solemn trust and treaty obligations to tribal nations and to build a brighter future for Indian Country.”

Warren will also have to contend with her previous ancestry claim, which has dogged her since her initial run for the Senate in 2012. At the time, a local Boston newspaper reported that Harvard had once identified her as a member of a minority group when she was a law professor there, and the Warren campaign said Native American ancestry had been part of her “family lore.”

The controversy reignited before she announced her presidential run, most notably when Warren took a DNA test last year to provide evidence that she had a Native American ancestor.

The decision immediately backfired, angering many Native Americans and drawing criticism from a progressive political base that has rarely disagreed with Warren. Tribal leaders said the DNA test helped further an idea they reject: that tribal citizenship can be determined by blood.

“If she wants to be considered the leader of our party or the leader of the progressive movement, she needs a reconciliation,” Jennifer Epps-Addison, co-director for the Center for Popular Democracy, said at the time.

Since her presidential announcement, Warren has apologized for taking the test and for her previous claims of Native heritage. Her campaign has pointed to an exhaustive analysis by The Boston Globe, which showed no evidence that she received an advantage or preferential hiring treatment because of her claims.

Warren is rarely asked about the issue on the campaign trail with Democratic voters, and her policy-driven candidacy has won over many progressive leaders. If she is successful in securing the party’s nomination, President Donald Trump would surely attempt to seize on the issue; he has already mocked her with a racial slur, “Pocahontas,” at many of his rallies.

Warren has incorporated meetings with Native leaders at several campaign stops. According to a campaign official, she has met with tribal leaders in Detroit, Seattle, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. She has also spoken at the National Indian Women’s Honoring Luncheon in Washington and the Frank LaMere Native American Presidential Forum in Sioux City, Iowa.

“I know that I have made mistakes,” Warren said at the Iowa forum, which took place in August. “I am sorry for harm I have caused. I have listened and I have learned a lot, and I am grateful for the many conversations that we’ve had together.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times .