Andrea Smith (academic), Date of Birth
TweetAndrea Smith (academic)
professor in American Studies, women's rights and anti-violence activist
Date of Birth: 
About Andrea Smith (academic)
- Andrea Lee Smith is an American academic, feminist, and activist against violence.
- Smith's work focuses on issues of violence against women of color and their communities, specifically Native American women.
- A co-founder of INCITE! Women of Color Against Violence, the Boarding School Healing Project, and the Chicago chapter of Women of All Red Nations, Smith has based her activism and her scholarship on the lives of women of color and long claimed to be Cherokee.
- Formerly an assistant professor of American Culture and Women's Studies at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Smith currently serves as an associate professor in the Department of Media and Cultural Studies at University of California, Riverside. In July 2015, Smith attracted national attention for having claimed Cherokee identity without proof or acceptance by the Cherokee nation.
- Smith said that her "enrollment status does not impact [her] Cherokee identity" and that she always has been and always will be Cherokee.
- Five Cherokee women scholars issued a public statement decrying Smith's Cherokee claims as false, noting that citizenship is based on community and kinship, and damaged by such abuse of integrity.
- Her claims have also been rejected by other Native scholars, saying her actions have damaged trust between indigenous and non-indigenous scholars.
- David Cornsilk, a Cherokee genealogist, notes she has no family connections to documented Cherokee ancestors or relatives.
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