Mentioned in the Circe Sturm thread, TAAF seems to be on much stronger grounds in their criticism. Bolding is mine.
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https://tribalallianceagainstfrauds.org/dr-john-lowePRESS RELEASE
Subject: Dr. John Ronald Lowe
born 7-16-56 (Chestertown, Maryland)
Sovereign Nations / identity falsely claimed: Cherokee, Lenape, Creek, Osage, Powhatan (at current count….)
Determination: Zero American Indian ancestry found in Dr. Lowe’s genealogy and zero connection to any legitimate tribal nation
Date: 3-6-24
Dr. John Lowe, an educator in the nursing field whose academic work has focused on American Indian populations, has falsely claimed, for several decades, to be a member of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, a member of the United Keetoowah Band of Cherokee Indians, to be Lenape, Creek, Powhatan (and related to Pocahontas) AND Osage (related to the Osage women documented in Killers of the Flower Moon). None of which is true.
Dr. Lowe has falsely claimed, for decades, that his father, James Thomas Lowe, Sr., (11-16-23 / 12-14-14, born Prince Edward County, VA) was a full-blooded Cherokee man. In fact, his father was purely of European ancestry. He falsely claimed that his father taught him how to be Cherokee, which would be impossible. He claims that his paternal “Cherokee” grandmother, Mary Elizabeth Woodall (b. 1882 / 10-30-33 b. Farmville, VA; she was a woman of purely European ancestry), who only spoke Cherokee, raised him on the Cherokee Qualla Boundary… We suspect he was actually raised in Chestertown, Maryland. The problem with that claim is that she actually died 23 years before he was born. His mother, Mary E. Betty Seward (12-22-28 / 3-10-78 b. Dixon, Queen Anne’s, Maryland), whom he says died when he was a small child, actually died when he was a young adult, in 1978. He claims his mother was half Lenape. This is not true either. But this is how he claims a ¾ blood quantum....
Dr. Lowe has taken funds intended for bonafide American Indian people.
He took SAMHSA Minority Fellowship Program (MFP) funds to fund his personal doctoral schooling by falsely claiming to be a “Cherokee tribal member”, which is yet another outright lie.
https://nursing.utexas.edu/faculty/john-loweUT Austin wanted to hire an American Indian professor and thought they found one in Dr. Lowe but sadly, they had no idea how to vet his false claims. Everyone who has accepted his lies as truth are his victims.
Link where John claims to be a ‘Cherokee Tribal Member on an NIH funded site and claims to be the first American Indian man to earn a PhD in nursing and to be inducted into the FAAN (a Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing).
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK586513/He is currently a guest editor of Archives of Psychiatric Nursing for a special edition regarding the “mental health of Indigenous people”. He got that position by falsely claiming to be “Cherokee, Creek and Lenape”. ---------
The harm here and the benefit to him is pretty direct. Lowe seems to be near the end of his career. Ethically and morally, he should repay the funds taken under false pretenses. His claiming to speak as an insider also did harm.
Focusing on Native health and health needs, he certainly did enormous good, but falsely claiming methodology or insight did harm. If he'd simply done so as an outsider or ally he could point to his whole career with pride.
What isn't clear so far is how much of this was from malice and how much from wishful thinking and laziness. Certainly claiming to have learned from a grandma who wasn't Native and who already passed away was a deliberate choice. It's also hard to believe that in all this time he never did research or had professionals do it. And of course deliberately lying about enrollment was a conscious choice.
