Paul Edward Driskill AKA Qwo-Li Driskill

[Sparks]

Cherokee I've asked say he's non-Native. They also said he made up the stuff he's published about two-spirits among the Cherokee. He's gotten white people to publish it, though, and is trying to make a career for himself in academia.

My boldings. The "stuff he's published about two-spirits among the Cherokee" is this book:

In Cherokee Asegi udanto refers to people who either fall outside of men’s and women’s roles or who mix men’s and women’s roles. Asegi, which translates as “strange,” is also used by some Cherokees as a term similar to “queer.” For author Qwo-Li Driskill, asegi provides a means by which to reread Cherokee history in order to listen for those stories rendered “strange” by colonial heteropatriarchy.

As the first full-length work of scholarship to develop a tribally specific Indigenous Queer or Two-Spirit critique, Asegi Stories examines gender and sexuality in Cherokee cultural memory, how they shape the present, and how they can influence the future.

The theoretical and methodological underpinnings of Asegi Stories derive from activist, artistic, and intellectual genealogies, referred to as “dissent lines” by Maori scholar Linda Tuhiwai Smith. Driskill intertwines Cherokee and other Indigenous traditions, women of color feminisms, grassroots activisms, queer and Trans studies and politics, rhetoric, Native studies, and decolonial politics. Drawing from oral histories and archival documents in order to articulate Cherokee-centered Two-Spirit critiques, Driskill contributes to the larger intertribal movements for social justice.

And "trying to make a career for himself in academia"? Seems he has come a long way already, with bios at several academic sites, all of them containing the Cherokee claim:

Graduate Studies Director - Associate Professor
School of Language, Culture, and Society: Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Director of Graduate Studies; Queer Studies. Graduate Faculty. Affiliate Faculty: Ethnic Studies, Public Policy, Social Justice. September 2016-Present.
[…]
Additional Information:
Qwo-Li Driskill is a (non-citizen) Cherokee Two-Spirit and Queer writer, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent.

There is a 23 pages long CV, see the link on that page: Curriculum Vitae: cvjuly2017online.pdf

https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/sites/liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/files/cvjuly2017online.pdf

No ancestry claims there, but Cherokee mentioned 47 times.

Meet Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill
Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill received their PhD in Rhetoric and Writing from MSU in 2008. Dr. Driskill, a Cherokee Two-Spirit, is now Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies in the Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies program at Oregon State University. Their research interests include Native American and Indigenous Studies, Queer Studies, and creative writing.

Qwo-Li Driskill is a (non-citizen) Cherokee Two-Spirit and Queer writer, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent.

From here I quote the photo caption:

Qwo Li Driskill is a Cherokee Two-Spirit poet and writer who teaches at Oregon State. Driskill was the featured speaker at the annual Women's and Gender Studies program symposium at ISU.

I wonder if a whistle-blower will be enough to shatter his career, if it can be definitely proven through genealogy work here at NAFPS that the Cherokee ancestry is pure fiction?

[Sparks]

Seems he has come a long way already, with bios at several academic sites, all of them containing the Cherokee claim:

Another one: https://english.humanities.mcmaster.ca/2018/09/19/distinguished-visiting-professor-qwo-li-driskill/

Distinguished Visiting Professor Qwo-Li Driskill
September 25-27, 2018 All Welcome! Please forward this information widely.
Poster can be viewed here.
Qwo-Li Driskill is a (non-citizen) Cherokee Two-Spirit and Queer writer, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent. S/he is the author of Walking with Ghosts: Poems (Salt Publishing, 2005) and the co-editor of Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature (University of Arizona, 2011) and Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions in Theory, Politics, and Literature (University of Arizona, 2011).  Hir book Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory (University of Arizona 2016) was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2017. S/he is the Director of Graduate Studies and the Queer Studies Curriculum Organizer in Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University.

The poster is here: http://gsfr.humanities.mcmaster.ca/wp-content/uploads/sites/5/2018/09/Driskill-Poster.pdf

[educatedindian]

There is a 23 pages long CV, see the link on that page: Curriculum Vitae: cvjuly2017online.pdf

https://liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/sites/liberalarts.oregonstate.edu/files/cvjuly2017online.pdf

No ancestry claims there, but Cherokee mentioned 47 times.

I wonder if a whistle-blower will be enough to shatter his career, if it can be definitely proven through genealogy work here at NAFPS that the Cherokee ancestry is pure fiction?

No one gets hired in academia based on ethnicity/race. Nor should they. That's a myth. I always find it disturbing when NDNs repeat it, since it originally came from racists spreading misinformation about affirmative action.

It does seem Driskill was careful not to claim Cherokee on his CV, just strongly falsely imply it 47 times. He does repeat it, or get others to, seemingly everywhere else.

Not having read any of his work, I can't say whether it's false. I will take the word of actual Cherokee who say it is. For one thing, Driskill seems to be the only one online using Cherokee words like asegi that way. But once again Driskill cleverly "intertwines Cherokee and other Indigenous traditions, women of color feminisms, grassroots activisms, queer and Trans studies and politics, rhetoric, Native studies, and decolonial politics." IOW it's so highly mixed he can argue he never intended or claimed it to be Cherokee tradition.

The big problem of course is he presents himself as an insider's voice. Most of that 23 pg CV is a lot of padding. Most of it are actually performances, or him at LGBT events. He realized there's a gap in scholarship that he filled with an invented identity and pieces of faux Cherokee that fit with activist causes.

Even if Driskill could show distant ancestry, he's still not Cherokee or NDN. He doesn't have the lived experience. He was always treated as white since he looks white in everyone's eyes, and he didn't grow up anywhere near other NDNs. That part of CO is almost all white and heavily fundamentalist.

I recall a similar case, Andrea Smith. She got kicked off a grad studies position because she was expected to recruit and represent NDN students. But Driskill is in queer studies and clearly is gay and trans.

Perhaps the way to go is to point out to gay Native groups and activists that his claims are false. They are the one being pushed out, replaced by him and misrepresented.

[Sparks]

Four links not posted here before (2015, 2018, 2019, 2020):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x9s3WVIzm-Q  (Length 42:31)

Research Online Videos
Presentation by Dr Qwo-Li  Driskill at the Cultured Queer / Queering Culture: Indigenous Perspectives on Queerness sysmposium [sic], University of Wollongong [New South Wales, Australia], 19 February 2015.

https://gettysburgian.com/2018/11/qwo-li-driskill-offers-message-of-hope-to-students-community-members/ (Nov 25, 2018)

More than 100 students, faculty, and community members filled Kline Theater on Wednesday, November 14 to hear Qwo Li Driskill, a two-spirit Cherokee author, talk about life as a two-spirit indigenous person.

Gettysburg Professor and author Stephanie Sellers introduced Professor Driskill, who is the queer studies organizer for the WGS department of Oregon State University, acknowledging and thanking the ancestors and elders of the many native American nations that call Pennsylvania home. The reverence of the whole affair was quite remarkable, as Professor Driskill led the audience through an engaging lecture about hir experience and that of other two-spirit Cherokees s/he has interviewed for hir dissertation.

S/he opened by explaining that s/he weaves baskets; often, they are double walled weaves, which creates a third space. S/he compared this to the lives of two-spirit people (a term only used to refer to indigenous people who identify as what is referred to in western society as gender non-conforming or gender fluid). Driskill explained that in Cherokee, there are no gendered pronouns, and that colonialization created that issue, as two-spirit people have always existed in Cherokee nations. However, this preexisting and acceptance of two-spirit people cannot, as s/he emphasized, be romanticized as an overwhelming popularity and appreciation by the entire Cherokee and greater native American population.

At the conclusion of the lecture, a student asked, “What gives you hope?” Driskill responded quite candidly, “I have a lot of hope about the younger generation of folks.”

https://ecampus.oregonstate.edu/research/podcast/e178/ (Accompanying audio about 34 minutes)

RIA # 178: Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill on Indigenous & Two-spirit Studies
November 4, 2019 Dr. Qwo-Li Driskill
On this episode, Katie is joined by Qwo-Li Driskill, a (non-citizen) Cherokee Two-Spirit and Queer writer, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent. They are the author of Walking with Ghosts: Poems (Salt Publishing, 2005) and the co-editor of Sovereign Erotics: A Collection of Two-Spirit Literature (University of Arizona, 2011) and Queer Indigenous Studies: Critical Interventions is Theory, Politics, and Literature (University of Arizona, 2011). Their book Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory (University of Arizona 2016) was a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2017.

https://festival.artseverywhere.ca/presenter/qwo-li-driskill/

A FESTIVAL OF IDEAS — January 22 - 26, 2020 — Guelph [University in Guelph, Ontario, Canada]
Qwo-Li Driskill
Qwo-Li Driskill is a (non-citizen) Cherokee Two-Spirit and Queer writer, activist, and performer also of African, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Osage ascent. S/he is the author of several books, including Asegi Stories: Cherokee Queer and Two-Spirit Memory, a finalist for a Lambda Literary Award in 2017. S/he is the Director of Graduate Studies Women, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Oregon State University.

[CrystalClear]

Four tribes (Cherokee, Lenape, Osage, and Lumbee), yet can't produce a relative from any of them....?

[Beagle]

Some more information. Driskill claims descent from their mother as well as their father, and this is the source of the Cherokee claim. The whole article isn't available free, but on this page the claim is made:
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/08989575.2017.1289032?scroll=top&needAccess=true&journalCode=raut20
"My mother is Cherokee, Irish, Lenape, Lumbee, and Black. My father was Irish and Osage but thought of himself as Irish and had little connection to his Osage history."

In this article, in footnote 6 on page 162, they specifically claim a "Black Cherokee tradition." The article includes discussions of doing theatre workshops specifically for Indigenous people not in Indigenous communities.

http://jan.ucc.nau.edu/~jar/NNL/NNL_13.pdf

Here they discuss weaving wampum and participating in Cherokee dance. http://www.beyondmasculinity.com/articles/driskill.php?page=1

As noted above, people aren't hired in academe because of their race or ethnicity, but this person is certainly gaining publishing and speaking opportunities, and being recognized as an authority on Cherokee traditions, based on their claims.

[RedRightHand]

From the Willamette Week:

https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/11/15/students-faculty-and-a-watchdog-say-oregon-state-university-is-ignoring-allegations-of-identity-fraud/

Students, Faculty and a Watchdog Say Oregon State University Is Ignoring Allegations of Identity Fraud
The accusations were leveled against a prominent professor—who claims to be the real victim.

By Nigel Jaquiss
November 15, 2023 at 6:11 am PST

Allegations of identity fraud against a distinguished professor and author are roiling Oregon State University, pitting faculty against one of their own and causing graduate students to turn against a mentor.

The catalyst that caused a long-simmering controversy to boil over: an investigative report released Oct. 25 by the North Carolina-based Tribal Alliance Against Frauds. The Indigenous watchdog group says it investigates people who “falsely represent American Indian cultures, histories, and spiritual practices and/or falsely claim American Indian identity as individuals for profit or fame.”

The most recent subject of the group’s scrutiny is Qwo Li Driskill, a tenured associate professor of Women, Gender and Sexual Studies & Queer Studies in OSU’s College of Liberal Arts. Driskill, 48, identifies as “trans, nonbinary, two-spirit, and queer multiracial and Indigenous,” according to a faculty biography.

After a four-month investigation, the group determined Driskill’s claims of Indigenous and Black ancestry were bogus.

“The Tribal Alliance Against Frauds is asking Oregon State University to fire…Driskill for academic dishonesty and ethnic fraud unless Driskill makes a public statement admitting that they are not American Indian at all and gives a public apology,” the group wrote.

...

In this case, the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds alleged that Driskill’s claims of ancestral ties to the Cherokee, Lenape and Osage tribes were concocted.

“[Driskill has] zero ancestry from any American Indian tribal nation whatsoever,” the group’s report said. “This is supported by hundreds of unimpeachable genealogical documents that trace Driskill in a direct line back several generations on both sides of their family. It is also supported by letters from all the nations they falsely claim ancestry from.”

Read full article

[Sparks]

From the Willamette Week:
https://www.wweek.com/news/2023/11/15/students-faculty-and-a-watchdog-say-oregon-state-university-is-ignoring-allegations-of-identity-fraud/
The catalyst that caused a long-simmering controversy to boil over: an investigative report released Oct. 25 by the North Carolina-based Tribal Alliance Against Frauds. The Indigenous watchdog group says it investigates people who “falsely represent American Indian cultures, histories, and spiritual practices and/or falsely claim American Indian identity as individuals for profit or fame.”

Here is that report: https://tribalallianceagainstfrauds.org/%22qwo-li%22-driskill

At the bottom there is a downlodable fan chart of his genealogy, as well as five other PDF downloads.

The TAAF also maintains a Facebook page on the subject:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61550909816574
[Proof that Paul Edward "Qwo-Li" Driskill is NOT American Indian]

TAAF also has a general FB page with lots of interesting posts:
https://www.facebook.com/p/TAAF-The-Tribal-Alliance-Against-Frauds-100067952795892/

The TAAF Twitter (X) page; https://twitter.com/TAAFisWatching

Some other news items sparked by the TAAF investigative report:

https://www.insidehighered.com/news/faculty-issues/diversity-equity/2023/11/07/oregon-state-professor-accused-falsely-claiming
https://gazettetimes.com/news/local/education/osu-professor-accused-of-faking-ancestry/article_0b373ddc-7a70-11ee-b5ef-77fb32edc1a7.html

Lastly, I will add this petition, started Nov. 9, 2023:

https://www.change.org/p/remove-professor-qwo-li-driskill-from-oregon-state-university-faculty

[liannacostantino]

Came across this today and just a quick note on the name "Qwo-Li".  It appears Asian, but it is actually the Cherokee phonetization of "Paul".  So it's Paul's attempt to turn "Paul" into a Cherokee sounding name. 

At TAAF we're still hanging in there to work to get him fired from his university.  A tall order for tenure professors.  Most folks there can't stand him anyway.  Especially his students.  You'd think he wouldn't stay where he's clearly not wanted....