Here’s the long version, from the relevant campus paper.
She’s, like, totally innocent and only claimed the identity cuz ma and pa told her she had it; it never occurred to her to, like, confirm it before she began reaping its bennies. Whoops!
[O]thers are … skeptical of [Elizabeth] Hoover’s intentions… [Another academic of confirmed Native American extraction] has “long been baffled” by Hoover’s claim to Native American descent, and … Hoover’s statement comes as “no surprise” to herself and many other Indigenous scholars. [She commented that] “it is bizarre if not unconscionable” to claim to be Indigenous without confirming genealogical relationship or legal connection to a first nation … “She deliberately misrepresented herself,” [another Native academic] alleged in a statement. “Hoover was facing calls for accountability in American Studies back at Brown University... It is deeply upsetting to think of the higher education resources—from Williams College to Brown and now Berkeley—that could have supported the professional advancement of a young Native woman scholar instead… It’s important to note that Hoover never apologized for wrongdoing in her statement.”