Andrea Smith (academic)

Andrea Smith
Andrea Smith (right) in 2011
Citizenship	United States
Education	Bachelor of Arts in Comparative Study of Religion Master of Divinity Ph.D. in History of Consciousness Juris Doctorate
Alma mater	Harvard University Union Theological Seminary University of California, Santa Cruz University of California Irvine School of Law

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 University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, Michigan, Smith is 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.

Smith was born in San Francisco, California and grew up in Southern California. Smith earned her bachelor's degree at Harvard University in Comparative Study of Religion, and her Masters of Divinity at the Union Theological Seminary in 1997. In 2002, she received her Ph.D. in History of Consciousness from UC Santa Cruz.