Islamaphobia row academic: I wore a disguise. Better ridiculous than dead
As Steven Greer relates his long-running battle to shake himself free of false accusations of Islamophobia, he describes moments of absurdity.
At one stage, this respected law professor, a quietly spoken grandfather of four, was so worried about his personal safety that he did not venture out to the corner shop in the leafy Bristol suburb where he lives without wearing a disguise.
When a social media storm engulfed him, he grew a Taliban-style beard, wore empty spectacle frames and a hoodie and carried an umbrella and a screwdriver for protection. 'I was mostly thinking, 'This is ridiculous'. But it's better to be ridiculous than dead,' he said.
This week, free speech campaigners and academic groups asked the Office for Students (OfS), the higher education regulator in England, to examine what they believe are failures of governance and management at the University of Bristol, where Greer was a professor of law and had worked for 36 years.
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