A petition to remove an associate professor from her position at the University of California, Berkeley, has collected hundreds of signatures.
Staff, faculty, students and other community members have signed the petition to remove Elizabeth Hoover, who has issued an apology for claiming to be Native American when she had been white her “whole life”.
Hoover was hired by the university in 2020, with her university biography page saying that she would research Native American food systems, food sovereignty and Native American environmental health movements.
In a previous statement from 2022, she had stated that she grew up believing she was Mohawk on her mother’s side and Mi’kmaq on her father’s but questions raised about her true identity had prompted her to do genealogical research which resulted in her finding no records of tribal citizenship for any family members.
“I have brought hurt, harm, and broken trust to the Native community at large, and to specific Native communities I have worked with and lived alongside, and for that, I am deeply sorry,” CNN reports Hoover’s apology as stating.
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Many on campus have called for Hoover’s resignation and removal from “all positions on boards and advisory committees and all grants, speaking engagements, and other paid opportunities she obtained with her false identity,” according to a collective statement written by three Berkeley PhD students.
The petition to remove Hoover has collected 375 signatures from staff, faculty, students and other community members.
UC Berkeley spokesperson Janet Gilmore said in a statement that the university was unable to address personnel matters that violated privacy rights.
“We are aware of and support ongoing efforts to achieve restorative justice in a way that acknowledges and addresses the extent to which this matter has caused harm and upset among members of our community,” the statement reads.
