Senator Elizabeth Warren never met an affirmative action program she didn’t like. 

She remains most grateful to the army of bureaucrats who have produced thousands of touchy-feely guidelines that protect individuals -- burnishing their “diversity credentials” -- from having to prove they are who they say they are.

Got that? Warren fully understands she can check off any “racial” or “ethnic” box she wants without being legally challenged in academia or the workplace. No one wants to run afoul of an agency that does not require a legal definition for self-proclaimed racial identity: the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission’s guidance on the Genetic Information Nondiscrimination Act. 

Those in know understand the rules -- or non-rules -- of the game. Here’s how it works. 

If a student claims he’s African American, for example, he can stick to his ethnic guns -- despite his appearance -- while attempting to secure a better place in line for admission to a coveted college. He may appear Caucasian, but there is nothing an administrator can legally undertake to challenge the dubious claim. This policy enabled Sen. Warren to pull off the absurd classification as a “person of color” at Harvard University.

Things are now becoming more complicated in this topsy-turvy world of encouraging ethnic diversity. Some individuals are catching onto the benefits of “racial divides” and deciding to change their “assigned race” (at birth) to a race of their own choosing. 

Rachel Dolezal, a woman of European heritage, passed herself off as an African American while occupying an executive position with her local NAACP chapter. She’s liberal enough to grasp the concept that people can undergo “sex reassignment” and she decided “race reassignment” was the next (obvious) progressive step. Perhaps she can be considered “transracial.” 

Dolezal must have been shocked by the “intolerant” reaction from her fellow progressives. Scratch the word “fellow” because it’s not gender-neutral and no longer warrants a place in our enlightened lexicon.

She’s not the only one running into headwinds, or should we say “war clouds,” in the case of Sen. Warren. While Harvard never required a DNA test of faculty, the politician made the big mistake of voluntarily submitting to one, never thinking the results would fail to pass the laugh test.

She spent so much time viewing life through the lens of CNN that she forgot that some people see the world differently. As the story broke, CNN, and other media outlets, were part of the stampede to broadcast “proof” of Warren’s DNA ancestry. But they weren’t willing to get trampled underfoot by the facts.

Liberal commentators were shamed into changing their narrative as the Cherokee Nation weighed in with their outrage over Warren’s appropriation of their native culture. Unlike other ethnicities, the Cherokee Nation refuses blanket acceptance of “self-identified” members, and has established a strict legal definition. Let’s see whether Warren qualifies.

She’s going to have to keep digging through the family attic to produce the documents required -- which would be a direct ancestor listed on one of the Dawes Final Rolls of Citizens of the Cherokee Nation (circa 1899 to 1906). She must prove she descends directly from a person listed on these rolls which were documented by members of the Cherokee Tribe residing in Indian Territory.

High cheekbones in the family is not part of the documentation process. 

Through all the turmoil, Sen. Warren claims victory in her dispute with President Trump over her alleged ancestral connection to the Cherokee Nation. Her overactive imagination carried her to the point of believing that Native Americans would share in her outrage against the president. 

There was plenty of outrage to go around, but not in the direction anticipated by the senator. 

Warren has learned the hard way that the Cherokee Nation has endured enough theft to last several lifetimes and they are not about to allow an ambitious politician to further rob them of their most cherished asset: their heritage.