An academic at UC-Berkeley has apologized after revealing that she is white and not Native American as she had long believed. Elizabeth Hoover, an associate professor in the college’s Department of Environmental Science, Policy, and Management, said the error about her identity was based on “incomplete information.” “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,” Hoover wrote in a letter of apology on her website. “I am a white person who has incorrectly identified as Native my whole life, based on incomplete information. In uncritically living an identity based on family stories without seeking out a documented connection to these communities, I caused harm.”
