I don't see the reason for downvoting parent.
Full quote is "Cambridge is the University of Erasmus, of Newton, and of Darwin; censoring writings that offend the powerful is offensive to our deepest values", and first part struck me as completely irrelevant to the second part, somewhat unworthy of this otherwise well-convened letter.
In addition to that I don't see it as an "elegant way of giving finger", how mentioning of historic figures conveys the "finger message"?
Erasmus, Newton and Darwin all published writings which offended the powerful. Cambridge didn't censor that, and they seem to see that as a winning strategy.
Who knows...people tend to get offended when their reasoning is held to measure against rational thought for some reason.
Given that his argument is supposed to be "we are Cambridge, we have a tradition of logical and rational thinking we are proud of, this research is representative of that tradition, we think that it should not be censored" I found this errant line to really jump out at me.
In addition to that I don't see it as an "elegant way of giving finger", how mentioning of historic figures conveys the "finger message"?