revoked Sainte-Marie\u2019s honorary degree<\/a> earlier this year after a Mi\u2019kmaw medical student raised concerns about the harm of maintaining the honor, according to CBC.<\/p>\nArticle continues below this ad<\/p>\n
Sainte-Marie rose to prominence in the 1960s folk scene and became known for songs including \u201cUniversal Soldier\u201d and \u201cNow That the Buffalo\u2019s Gone.\u201d She later co-wrote \u201cUp Where We Belong,\u201d from \u201cAn Officer and a Gentleman,\u201d which won the Academy Award for original song in 1983.<\/p>\n
![\"Buffy]()
<\/p>\n
Buffy Sainte-Marie at the 2017 Juno Awards at The Canadian Tire Centre on April 2, 2017 in Ottawa, Canada. The University of Toronto has rescinded Buffy Sainte-Marie\u2019s honorary Doctor of Laws degree, the latest institution to remove an honor from the Oscar-winning folk singer.<\/p>\n
George Pimentel\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
For decades, Sainte-Marie was widely celebrated as a trailblazing Indigenous artist and activist. She performed at San Francisco\u2019s Hardly Strictly Bluegrass festival in 2016, and her life and career were the subject of the 2022 documentary \u201cBuffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On.\u201d<\/p>\n
But the CBC investigation brought renewed scrutiny to her biography, reporting that a birth certificate identified her as Beverly Jean Santamaria, born in Massachusetts to white parents.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Sainte-Marie has said the report relied on fabricated accounts from estranged relatives and colonial records that do not capture the full truth of Indigenous identity, family and belonging.<\/p>\n
Article continues below this ad<\/p>\n
\u201cBeing an \u2018Indian\u2019 has little to do with sperm tracking and colonial record keeping,\u201d she said in a previous statement responding to the CBC investigation. \u201cIt has to do with community, culture, knowledge, teachings, who claims you, who you love, who loves you, and who\u2019s your family.\u201d<\/p>\n
CBC has said it stands by its reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Singer\u00a0Buffy Sainte-Marie performs onstage during Hardly Strictly Bluegrass at Golden Gate Park on October 2, 2016 in San…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":320743,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[329,7,330,4172,101,103,102,104,106,105,2013],"class_list":["post-320742","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-san-francisco","tag-arts-and-entertainment","tag-california","tag-music","tag-race-and-equity","tag-san-francisco","tag-san-francisco-headlines","tag-san-francisco-news","tag-sf","tag-sf-headlines","tag-sf-news","tag-us-and-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320742","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=320742"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/320742\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/320743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=320742"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=320742"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=320742"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}