Oxford students campaign to remove 'racist' Rhodes from college

More than 2,300 students sign petition calling on Oriel college to remove plaque and statue dedicated to British imperialist

An Oxford University college has said it hopes to remove a plaque dedicated to Cecil Rhodes and will also consider taking down a statue of the British imperialist after a campaign by students.

More than 2,300 people have signed a petition calling on Oriel college to remove the dedications. Rhodes was a student at the college in the 1870s and a plaque dedicated to his legacy has been at the college-owned 6 King Edward Street since 1906.

In a statement, Oriel said the college “does not share Cecil Rhodes’s values or condone his racist views or actions” and that it hopes to receive consent from Oxford council to remove the plaque. A consultation will start this week before a formal application to the council.

“Its wording is a political tribute, and the college believes its continuing display on Oriel property is inconsistent with our principles,” the college said in a statement, adding that consent must be obtained from the council because the building is in a conservation area.

The college also announced a six-month consultation on the future of the statue of Rhodes, starting in February 2016. Removing the statue, part of a Grade-II listed building, is trickier because it would require planning consent. The statue has also been listed by Historic England as an object of historical interest, in part because of Rhodes’s chequered reputation.

But the college acknowledged that the statue could be seen as “an uncritical celebration of a controversial figure, and the colonialism and the oppression of black communities he represents: a serious issue in a college and university with a diverse and international mix of students and staff, and which aims to be a welcoming academic community”.

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2015/dec/18/oxford-university-students-cecli-rhodes

Good for them.

yeah, why dont we just erase ALL imagery of our history...

Isis are good at that

lets prepare the ground for them

or is it only imagery that pisses the left thats going to be "purged "?

perhaps you could replace Rhodes with Lord Haw Haw

or perhaps more to your liking Philby, Blunt and Burgess?

lets just deny our past, since thats what constitutes the greatest bulk of "culture" and we all know how the left hate our culture and long for it to be repaced with islamic symbolism and ass in the air 5 times a day...

maybe you could replace it with a staue of Saladin

You'd think that students at Oxford would be concentrating on their work rather than worrying about a plaque and a statue.

Soon, history will be re-written.

What will happen to the Rhodes Scholarship program, I wonder?

do you know what ,when i went to school adwick le street comprehensive we had four houses
Moore
priestly
Delius
and Rhodes

i was actually in Rhodes

What next? A campaign to desecrate the grave of Guy Gibson's dog?

I hear the student from South Africa that is driving this request is on a Rhodes scholarship