Don’t rewrite history, Oxford students told

Controversial legacy: There are calls to remove the statue of Cecil Rhodes on the facade of the Oriel College building in Oxford. - Reuters

THE chancellor of Britain’s Oxford University warned last week that history should not be rewritten to meet modern notions of what is acceptable, in an apparent rebuff to a student campaign to remove a statue of colonialist Cecil Rhodes.

The student push to remove the statue from Oriel College has ignited a debate about Britain’s colonial past and whether one of the country’s most revered educational establishments should distance itself from that history.