University of Toronto strips Buffy Sainte-Marie’s honorary degree

Buffy Sainte-Marie performs at the Toronto International Film Festival's kick off event in Toronto on Thursday, September 8, 2022. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Alex Lupul

An honorary degree awarded to Buffy Sainte-Marie by the University of Toronto has been revoked three years after questions about her Indigenous roots came to light.

The musician, whose claimed Indigenous identity was central to her rise in the ‘60s folk scene, was awarded the degree in 2019.

In a bulletin posted to its website, the Toronto university said that the revocation was a result of a petition sent to its standing committee on recognition in 2025.

“The Committee unanimously recommended the rescindment of the honorary degree awarded to Buffy Sainte-Marie,” the school said.

It’s the latest honour that’s been stripped from the artist after a 2023 CBC investigation suggested she was born in Massachusetts in 1941 and likely has Italian-American ancestry. She was stripped of the Order of Canada in 2025.

Sainte-Marie has denied the accusations.

She previously claimed that she was “believed to have been born in 1941 on the Piapot First Nation reserve in Saskatchewan and taken from her biological parents when she was an infant.”

In response to losing the Order of Canada, Sainte-Marie said she never denied her U.S. citizenship and defended her Indigenous identity by staying that her “Cree family adopted me forever and this will never change.”

She has not publicly responded to the revocation of her honorary degree.

With files from The Canadian Press