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An open letter published by the McGill Student Society cited my publications in PJ Media and demanded that McGill University cancel me. More specifically, the society demanded that my status as Emeritus Professor of Anthropology be revoked. This letter was signed by the McGill Student society, anthropology undergraduate and graduate societies, four student Middle Eastern and Islamic groups, and a black student group.
The open letter targeted a more general policy, that of academic freedom. The view expressed in the open letter is that academic freedom should not allow opinions that the signatories disagree with or facts that they might find uncongenial. The signatories believe that they should be the arbiters of what may be thought, said, and written. This is an ambitious role for students to claim, rather akin to a ministry of truth in a closed, Soviet, or Maoist dictatorship.