Cherokees To Protest Warren at State Convention

UPDATE: Elizabeth Warren has been hoping for weeks that the recent flap about her self-identified North American heritage would fade into the background. Looks like she's going to have to keep hoping.

A group of Native Americans announced Thursday that they will stage a protest on Saturday outside the state Democratic Convention in Springfield. "Our mission is to help people understand what a real Cherokee is and to show why Elizabeth Warren claiming to be Cherokee without proof is harmful and offensive to us," the group explained on its website, which comes with the tag line "Cherokees Demand Truth from Elizabeth Warren."

Warren has repeatedly stood by her claims that, as undocumented as it may be, her Native American heritage is a part of her identity, a stance she reaffirmed in an interview with the Boston Globe on Thursday afternoon. "I won’t deny who I am, I won’t deny my heritage, but I didn’t ask for anything because of it," she told the paper.

Meanwhile, Sen. Scott Brown took a swipe at his likely November challenger Thursday, saying that "my mom and dad told me a lot of things too, but it’s not accurate," a reference to Warren's explanation of her self-identified heritage. She publicly called for an apology from Brown for that comment, but the request was dismissed by the Republican's campaign.

Thursday, May 31: Elizabeth Warren has been the subject of some drawn-out scrutiny of late over her self-identification as part Native American. Wednesday night, the liberal Senate hopeful added a bit more fuel to that fire when she admitted for the first time that she told Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania that she was part Cherokee at "some point" after they hired her.

The Boston Globe prompted the disclosure from the candidate after finding records in Harvard's library that indicated the school may have reported her as Native American while she taught there.

In a statement to the paper, Warren said that she provided the information to the Ivy League schools only after being hired, but didn't back down from her self-identification. "My Native American heritage is part of who I am, I’m proud of it and I have been open about it," she said.

Two people who recruited Warren to Harvard told the Globe that they didn't know about her claim of Native American heritage during the hiring process, nor did they take it into consideration when they made their final decision.

The controversy over Warren's heritage—she claims to be part Cherokee, but has not provided documentation—has caused a solid month of distraction for the Democrat as she continues her quest to unseat Scott Brown, the popular Republican senator who won a special election to fill the Senate seat of the late Sen. Edward Kennedy.