US students want composer sacked for showing Laurence Olivier video
mainThree weeks ago, the eminent composer Bright Sheng screened a video to his Michigan class of Laurence Olivier playing Othello in blackface. The video dates from 1965, when such acts were commonplace. It was supposed to trace a line in Othello from Shakespeare to Verdi.
After an uproar in class, Professor Sheng was made to issue a grovelling apology.
But that was not enough.
Students at the University of Michigan are still clamouring to have him sacked.
Read the full ugly story here of the death of free speech and the rule of the campus mob.
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