Oriel College, University of Oxford, has refused to take down this statue of Rhodes despite protests. Oxford claims to be in support of creating an equal space for students of all backgrounds, but how can they with a glorified white supremacist as a figurehead for one of their colleges? Oxford needs to take down the statue of Cecil Rhodes if they are ever to prove that the University is truly dedicated to equality and racial justice.

Cecil John Rhodes PC (5 July 1853 – 26 March 1902) was a British businessman, statesman, imperialist, mining magnate, and politician in southern Africa who served as Prime Minister of the Cape Colony from 1890 to 1896. An ardent believer in British imperialism and white supremacy, Rhodes and his British South Africa Company founded the southern African territory of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia), which the company named after him in 1895.

One of Rhodes's primary motivations in politics and business was his professed belief that the Anglo-Saxon race was, to quote his will, "the first race in the world". Under the reasoning that "the more of the world we inhabit the better it is for the human race", he advocated vigorous settler colonialism and ultimately a reformation of the British Empire so that each component would be self-governing and represented in a single parliament in London. Ambitions such as these, juxtaposed with his policies regarding indigenous Africans in the Cape Colony—describing the country's native black population as largely "in a state of barbarism", he advocated their governance as a "subject race", and was at the centre of actions to marginalise them politically—have led recent critics to characterise him as a white supremacist and "an architect of apartheid".