UC Berkeley Students Start Petition to Remove Bill Maher as Commencement Speaker

Bill Maher may not the most popular comedian in Berkeley right now.

The polarizing polemicist did what he did best on Oct. 3: sound off, memorably, on an issue of religion, and now Maher's comments about Islam have spurred a petition to remove him as a keynote speaker at December's commencement ceremonies, according to reports.

During an Oct. 3 broadcast, author Sam Harris called Islam "the mother lode of bad ideas," and Maher did not appear to disagree, chiming in that "liberal principles" are "lacking" in the Muslim world.

That's since landed Maher in hot water – which he’s not unaccustomed to – with the university's Islamic community and beyond, who want him dropped from the Dec. 20 graduation exercise.

A Change.org petition calling Maher a "blatant bigot and racist" had 3,000 signatures as of Tuesday evening.

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