ABSTRACT
On the 16th of January 2016, a majority of students at the Oxford University Union voted in favour of removing a statue of Victorian imperialist Cecil Rhodes from the top of Oriel College (BBC, 2016). 1 This decision was preceded by months of student-led campaigning, inspired by calls to “decolonize” education in South Africa. Beginning at the University of Cape Town, activists participating in what has come to be known as the “XMustFall” movement aim to free Higher Education of its colonial remnants and neo-imperialist implications. Despite widespread public attention for this campaign, Oriel College announced two weeks after the vote that the statue would remain in place. Newspapers reported that wealthy donors, in anger about the “shame and embarrassment” caused by the College’s response to the campaign, had threatened to withdraw donations amounting to £100m, thus leading Oriel’s board of governors to act against the student vote (Mortimer, 2016).
