Oscar-winning artist Buffy Sainte-Marie has honorary degree revoked after faking Indigenous ancestry

An Oscar-winning musician has lost his honorary title amid fallout following an investigation into allegedly impersonating his indigenous ancestry.

Buffy Sainte-Marie, 85, was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from the University of Toronto in 2019.

At the time, university officials said he was known for his work in music and art, as well as his defense of the “rights and dignity of all people.”

But on Wednesday, the governing council at the university voted to revoke Sainte-Marie’s honorary title following a petition. CBC reports.

The decision marks the last honor the singer, who won an Academy Award for writing the screenplay for Up Where We Belong, has since lost. 2023 investigation He revealed that he may have built his entire career on deception.

While Sainte-Marie rose to fame in the 1970s with her anti-war anthems Universal Soldier and Now That the Buffalo’s Gone, she told heartfelt stories of her Mi’kmaq heritage through her stepmother.

But CBC revealed that the singer’s birth certificate shows that she was actually born as Beverly Jean Santamaria to white parents in Massachusetts, not the Cree woman from Piapot First Nation in Saskatchewan she has claimed since the 1960s.

Sainte-Marie denied these allegations, insisting that the investigation into his ancestors contained ‘fabricated’ evidence.

A 2023 study found that the singer may have imitated his indigenous ancestry

“Growing up proud to be part of the Mi’kmaq, my mother told me many things, including that I was adopted and that I was indigenous,” Sainte-Marie said.

‘And later, as an adult, she also told me some things that I never shared out of respect for her. ‘I hate sharing this anymore, including the fact that I might have been born on the wrong side of the blanket.’

The singer claimed the CBC was based on fabricated accounts from her brother Alan, who she said sexually abused her, and two separate family members she did not know.

‘This was incredibly re-traumatizing for me and unfair to everyone involved,’ he said.

‘It hurts me deeply to discover that my estranged family grew up fearing me and thought these lies because of a letter I sent to protect me from further abuse by my brother.’

Sainte-Marie also claimed that she had never seen the birth certificate published by CBC and did not know the family members listed there.

‘I have never lied about my identity. “The more I knew, the more I pieced together a sense of self from the information presented to me,” he said.

‘What I know about my Indigenous ancestors I learned from my mother growing up of Mi’kmaq heritage and from my own research later in life.

Sainte-Marie won an Academy Award as co-writer of Up Where We Belong. Above, she holds the award with her then-husband, American composer and producer Jack Nitzsche, in April 1983.

‘My mother told me I was adopted and that I was Indigenous, but there was no documentation as was common for Indigenous children at the time.

‘For decades I have tried to find my birth family and information about my past. What has become clear through this research, and what I have always been honest about, is: I don’t know where I come from or who my biological parents are, and I will never know.

‘That’s why being questioned like this is painful for both me and my two families that I love so much.’

Sainte-Marie has always identified herself as belonging to the Cree tribe and says she was adopted as a child by a white family as part of the infamous ’60s Scoop in Canada, in which indigenous children were taken from their families and adopted by white parents.

But despite his claims to be a native of Sainte-Marie, the singer lost many of the honors he once enjoyed.

Sainte-Marie last year In 1997, he was stripped of the prestigious Order of Canada award he had received for his alleged work advocating for Indigenous causes.

The Order of Canada represents the country’s highest form of recognition for ‘outstanding contributions to the nation’.

In January, Dalhousie University in Halifax also decided to revoke an honorary degree after a Mi’kmaw student raised questions about the ethics of retaining the honour.

While Sainte-Marie rose to fame in the 1970s with his anti-war anthems ‘Universal Soldier’ ​​and ‘Now That the Buffalo Are Gone,’ he told heartfelt stories of his Mi’kmaq heritage through his stepmother.

Sainte-Marie is the second person to have an honorary degree from the University of Toronto revoked since the University of Toronto created a Permanent Recognition Committee in 2023.

Last year, the school also announced it was rescinding an honorary degree awarded to Duncan Campbell Scott in 1921 for his contributions to Canadian literature as a poet.

But Scott also worked for the Department of Indian Affairs from 1879 to 1932, serving as assistant superintendent for the last 19 years.

During this tenure, he pursued assimilation policies such as the expansion of Indian Residential Schools and was quoted as saying that he wanted to ‘get rid of the Indian problem’.

Audra Simpson, a professor of political anthropology at Columbia University and a Kanien’keha:ka member of the Kahnawa:ke tribe, told CBC she thinks the University of Toronto’s decision is long overdue.

He called the revocation of both Sainte-Marie and Campbell’s honorary degrees “a just outcome for him and for her, both of whom acted in different ways and at different time periods according to the imperatives of settler colonialism.”

“I hope it sends a message,” Simpson said.

The Daily Mail has reached out to representatives of the University of Toronto and Sainte-Marie for comment.