The head of the body that awards the Rhodes scholarship – the oldest and most prestigious international graduate award – has refused to back calls for the removal of controversial monuments to its original benefactor, Cecil Rhodes, despite insisting the organisation was “in listening mode”.
Dr Elizabeth Kiss, the chief executive of the Rhodes Trust, was speaking after the organisation announced a series of exhibitions designed to explore the legacy of the 19th-century colonialist.
But she said recommendations made to an Oxford college in 2021 that a statue of Rhodes be removed, among other reparative measures, were not a matter for her organisation, which preferred to focus on its own “soul-searching” effort, and internal changes it could make.
“It would be presumptuous of us, I think, to weigh in on that. We’re responding to our own community, and recommendations from our own advisory groups. That is what I think our responsibility is,” Kiss told the Guardian.
Calls to remove monuments to Rhodes from the University of Oxford, where Oriel College hosts a statue in his honour – started in earnest in 2016, after similar protest movements in South Africa.
