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A California professor accused of faking her Native American heritage will retire from her position following at least 15 years of criticism and a complaint filed by 13 fellow faculty members.
Andrea Smith, an ethnic studies professor at the University of California (UC), Riverside will no longer teach at the university starting in August 2024. In August 2022, 13 of her fellow faculty members filed a complaint alleging Smith had violated academic integrity for lying about her Cherokee identity.
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"UC Riverside and Ethnic Studies Professor Andrea Smith have negotiated a separation agreement that is effective Aug. 30, 2024," a university spokesman told Fox News Digital. "The agreement follows a complaint by UC Riverside faculty, alleging that Smith fraudulently claimed Native American identity. The nine-page separation agreement will bring a negotiated end to Professor Smith’s employment with the university."
The separation agreement, reportedly signed in January, allows Smith to avoid an investigation into the faculty complaint and protects the university from dealing with legal battles that can happen when a tenured professor is fired, the New York Times reported.
In 1991, early into her career, Smith penned an essay titled, "For All Those Who Were Indian in a Former Life" that criticized "white women who claim to be feminists" and "dissociate themselves from their whiteness" by opting to "become Indian."
"On the surface, it may appear that this new craze is based on a respect for Indian spirituality," she wrote. "In fact, the New Age movement is part of a very old story of white racism and genocide against the Indian people. The ‘Indian’ ways that these white, New Age feminists are practicing have little grounding in Native American reality."
Smith will keep her retirement benefits, as well are her honorary emeritus title, but it won't be listed in the university’s directory, the New York Times reported. In addition, UC Riverside will pay up to $5,000 toward Smith's legal costs for resolving the complaint.
"The negotiated separation agreement brings a timely conclusion to Professor Smith’s continued employment with the university," John D. Warren, a university spokesman, said in a statement to the New York Times. "Investigations of a tenured faculty member for alleged misconduct have potential for litigation and appeals, and can unfold over the course of years."
Smith did not respond to Fox News Digital's request for comment, but in a 2015 statement, she criticized "violent identity policing" over accusations about her potentially faux identity.
"I have always been, and will always be Cherokee," she wrote. "I have consistently identified myself based on what I knew to be true."
"My enrollment status [with the Cherokee Nation] does not impact my Cherokee identity or my continued commitment to organizing for justice for Native communities," she added.
In 2008, people started raising questions about Smith's Native American identity and was later denied tenure at the University of Michigan before she secured her role at UC Riverside.
After the New York Times Magazine published an essay on Smith in 2021 titled "The Native Scholar Who Wasn’t," UC Riverside Chancellor Kim Wilcox released a campus-wide statement that affirmed its commitment to "advocating for decolonial institutional change" and insisted upon "transparency and integrity in matters of indigenous affiliation and identity."
"UCR will continue ongoing conversations with campus Native scholars and others committed to transformative institutional practice to identify and implement improved policies and procedures, ensuring more rigorous attention to Indigenous commitments in our recruitment, retention, and admissions practices," the statement concluded.
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