The decision of Cambridge Communications to take down a video with David Starkey talking about his love of Cambridge on the grounds that a vociferous minority feel offended by things he has said in other places/contexts is cowardly, duplicitous and patronising to anyone who thinks they are quite capable of listening to Starkey and making our own minds up.  David Starkey may be controversial; so argue back - a student in Cambridge is unlikely to be a 'wee timorous beastie' in need of being protected against offensive views.  A more legitimate concern in academia should be that a history lecturer calling for this act of censorship thinks Medieval romance perpetuates Islamophobia -  a breathtaking a-historicism that really should have alarm bells ringing. (https://readingmedievalbooks.wordpress.com/2015/11/12/dear-world-david-starkey-does-not-speak-for-cambridge-university-on-race-or-gender/)

 Even worse is the almost total silence on the part of those who do not think Starkey should be banned.  This doesn't indicate the censors have won the argument - they haven't had it yet, preferring to remove the offending voice by emotive diktat. It does indicate there is a climate of fear and conformism that is antithetical to the core, public role of a university, which is to provide the conditions where scholars pursue truthful knowledge in their fields.

One  'micro-assertion of independence' in the face of alleged 'micro-aggression' would be to reinstate the original Dear World video.