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Laurie Taylor's column is usually the first thing I read in The Times Higher but I was shocked and disappointed to see that "sharing a room with a Christian" was considered to be a mitigating circumstance in the joke about raising marks (November 26).

Is it acceptable for your columnists to show what appears to be intolerance towards a minority (as Christians now are in UK)?

I am sure that he would never have dreamt, for instance, of putting "sharing a room with a Muslim" as a spoof excuse for academic underperformance. Even if he had, it would have been edited out.

Tim Pooley
Professor of French
London Metropolitan University