Award-winning Heather Rae, 56, serves on the Academy of Motion Pictures’ Indigenous Alliance, previously headed up the Sundance Institute’s Native American program and claims “my mother was Indian and my father was a cowboy.” Multiple prior news reports have also cited her as having a Cherokee mother.

But a watchdog group called the Tribal Alliance Against Frauds is now demanding the Academy and the producer drop her “false claims” while activists insist she’s at best 1/2048th Cherokee.

The group accuses her of profiting from usurping “real American Indian voices and perspectives” and being a fraudulent so-called “Pretendian.”

[She’s also part of the Sacheen Littlefeather controversy, too. I don’t think anyone will be surprised at someone in Hollywood being a phony, but the urge to claim disadvantaged status when it doesn’t apply certainly undermines the idea of “white privilege” a bit, no? — Ed]