because of visibility—"differentness"—in the job pool, conversely sort of why a few black people go republican?

What is the incentive here?

These are the people who think that minorities get all the perks that they are somehow entitled to, like all the policies that ensure equality... or supposed to ensure equality.

So they fake it and adopt a personna, once they see that this belief only gets them so far they decide they want to bail on that idea and go with the ethnicity that will favor them.

American exceptionalism.

Ironically I think she'll find she can't go back even if she wants to because of her new found notoriety—this will be all over google searches/cyber space for forever.

It's weird.

I think these women looked at Affirmative Action and wanted a "piece of the pie" as "double minorities", thinking that it would open doors and get them jobs that they wanted to narrow the competition for.

Their own stories weren’t very interesting and they had no souls, so they stole the souls of others.
I’m sure there are deep psychological reasons for all of this, the same with embezzlement and other types of theft, but I give it the same moral weight. These are scammers and cheats.

Not just faking an identity, stealing one.

Being a dumbass in HS, maybe yes, but in college and grad school and publishing research, under a tainted name, no, I cannot get it

“Instead of listening to friends tell me they felt hurt and betrayed, I kept trying to explain myself and why it had happened.”
Another gaslighting grifter imo

From link
The TAA Executive Board and Racial Justice Committee of UW-Madison issued this statement:

“We condemn CV Vitolo-Haddad’s appropriation of Black and Brown identities in no uncertain terms. They have resigned as co-president, and we have removed their access to our website, social media, and all other internal accounts. We cannot speak for CV, but we as TAA leaders are profoundly sorry for the harm they have caused members of the Madison community by
1) claiming Black and Brown identities,
2) using those identities to silence and alienate activists in organizing spaces, and
3) manipulating and gaslighting Black and Brown community members who tried holding them accountable.”

past media. Movies like Gentlemen's Agreement and a (s)light comedy, Soul Man--along with Watermelon Man (an unintentional change from a white bigot to a Black man) come to mind. There's also the book "Black Like Me".

Most of these examples are older and mostly fictional, so reactions weren't as severe as now.

This also changes Chris Rock's riff about how he's rich and famous, yet none of his white audience members would ever change places with him.

The times--they are a-changin'. Just not the way Bob Dylan intended.