An Oxford college is to remove a plaque dedicated to the 19th century imperialist Cecil Rhodes after students said it was ‘racist’.

The monument, on a building owned by Oriel College, was erected in 1906 in recognition of the vast sums of money the mining magnate left to the university.

But campaigners claim that forcing ethnic minority students to walk past it on their way to lectures amounts to ‘violence’ because the college benefactor believed in colonialism.

Campaigners say forcing ethnic minority students to walk past the statue of Rhodes amounts to ‘violence’ because the Oriel College, Oxford, benefactor believed in colonialism

The university has also said it will consider demands to tear down a statue of Rhodes that stands at the entrance to the college.

A statement from Oriel said: ‘The College does not share Cecil Rhodes’s values or condone his racist views or actions. We commit to ensuring that acknowledgement of the historical fact of Rhodes’s bequest to the College does not suggest celebration of his unacceptable views and actions, and we commit to placing any recognition of his bequest in a clear historical context.

‘We are starting the process of consultation with Oxford City Council this week in advance of submitting a formal application for consent to remove the Rhodes plaque.

Its wording is a political tribute, and the College believes its continuing display on Oriel property is inconsistent with our principles.’

Rhodes, an advocate of colonial power in Africa, has been accused of helping to pave the way for apartheid. A diamond miner, he was an ardent expansionist of British influence and was the founder of Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe and Zambia).

As an Oxford graduate, he left money to the university. Many overseas students – including former US president Bill Clinton, the Australian PM Malcolm Turnbull and the singer Kris Kristofferson – have studied there on Rhodes Scholarships.

The campaign to remove the Oxford statue follows a similar university protest in South Africa and has been led by a group called Rhodes Must Fall. At the University of Cape Town, a statue of Rhodes was attacked and eventually taken down.

The university has also said it will consider demands to tear down a statue of Rhodes that stands at the entrance to the college

The Oxford campaigners argue that the views of the politician are incompatible with an ‘inclusive culture’ at the university.

A spokesman said: ‘We note with excitement that the pressure mounted on Oriel College this past term by Rhodes Must Fall Oxford has led the college to a decision that it will immediately remove a plaque of racist and murderous colonialist – Cecil Rhodes – from a college building.’

While the plaque is not listed, the college needs the council’s permission to remove it because it sits in a conservation area. The college said it would now begin a six-month consultation about the statue. But as the building has listed status, it may be that nothing can be changed.

‘In the short term, we have put up a temporary notice in the window of the High Street building, below the statue, clarifying its historical context and the college’s position on Rhodes,’ the college said.

Annie Teriba, a Rhodes Must Fall campaigner, said earlier this year: ‘There’s a violence to having to walk past the statue every day on the way to your lectures, there’s a violence to having to sit with paintings of former slave holders whilst writing your exams.’

ECCENTRIC PIONEER WHO BUILT AN AFRICAN EMPIRE With his eccentric habits and rambling speeches, Cecil Rhodes was an unlikely figure to deliver swathes of Africa to the Empire. A vicar’s son from Bishop’s Stortford, Hertfordshire, he became a famed imperialist, with Rhodesia, now split into Zimbabwe and Zambia, named after him. However he remains controversial as many believe his policies helped to pave the way for apartheid. Born in 1853, Rhodes attended a local grammar school as weak lungs prevented him being sent away. After going to work on a cotton farm in South Africa at 17, he moved into the diamond industry before belatedly obtaining a degree at Oxford, where students were intrigued by his colourful manner and monologues on the Empire. By the age of 30, he had formed the De Beers Mining Company, which came to own 90 per cent of the world’s diamond production and remains a major player to this day. Despite being an unimpressive speaker, he earned respect for his original views and befriended many Boer politicians. In 1881, Rhodes was elected to the parliament of the Cape Colony, in present-day South Africa and Namibia. One of his major aims was to open up the northern territories of what is now Zimbabwe, for mineral wealth, communications, and, eventually, white settlement. Queen Victoria found his imperialism attractive, and he flattered her by saying: ‘How could I dislike a sex to which your Majesty belongs?’ In 1889, he obtained a royal charter to start mining in what is now Botswana. From there, his pioneers began their hazardous march north, where they named the new territories Rhodesia in his honour. But it was after he became prime minister of the Cape Colony that he introduced policies credited with laying the foundations for apartheid. In 1892 he restricted the African vote to those with wealth and qualifications, and in 1894 he assigned an area for exclusively African development – effectively a native reserve. Rhodes described it as ‘a Bill for Africa’. In reality, it served to enforce segregation of native Africans. His last years were soured by an unfortunate relationship with a Polish aristocratic adventuress, Princess Caroline Radziwill, who sought to manipulate Rhodes to promote her ideas of the British Empire. He never married – pleading ‘I have too much work on my hands’ – and died of heart disease in 1902. Advertisement

NOBEL PRIZE WINNER IN SEXISM FURORE TO QUIT UK

By Colin Fernandez

The Nobel Prize-winning scientist forced to resign after making light-hearted remarks about women is now planning to leave the country.

Sir Tim Hunt faced a storm of criticism after he suggested the problem with female scientists was that men ‘fall in love with them’.

He claimed women should have separate laboratories and that they cry when criticised – in comments meant as a joke.

But such was the vilification from feminist scientists and students, University College London contacted Sir Tim’s wife insisting he resign from his honorary post there or face the sack.

The father of two obliged and emailed in his resignation during the debacle in June.

Sir Tim Hunt faced a storm of criticism after he suggested the problem with female scientists was that men ‘fall in love with them’ (He is pictured with his wife Mary Collins at their home in Hertfordshire)

Now Sir Tim, 72 – who won the Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in cancer research – is leaving Britain to live in Japan, according to friends.

He will accompany his wife, Mary Collins, who is to leave her own professorship at UCL to take up a job at a Japanese University with a five-year tenure.

The couple are said to be hoping to put the row behind them.

Confirming the move yesterday, Professor Collins told the Daily Mail: ‘This is a job I applied for before the Tim Hunt incident and is a very positive career move for me.’

But a friend of the couple, who live near Potters Bar, Hertfordshire, said the move would not be happening were it not for the witch-hunt that was triggered by the scientist’s comments. The friend, who did not wish to be named, said Sir Tim continued to be upset by the false accusations of sexism, adding: ‘It’s very sad, it’s quite clear it’s based on their exhaustion.

Now Sir Tim, 72 – who won the Nobel Prize for breakthroughs in cancer research – is leaving Britain to live in Japan, according to friends. He will accompany his wife, Mary Collins, who is to leave her own professorship at UCL to take up a job at a Japanese University with a five-year tenure

‘I’ve kept in touch with Tim over the past six months. They have been up and down, even quite recently. They have been emotionally affected by it. They have had a lot of criticism, he’s had invitations to talk at conferences withdrawn on the grounds he’s not a suitable person, or if he appeared it might produce a reaction, backlash or protest.’

The friend said the ‘paradox’ of the sexism row was the impact it has had on one of Britain’s most senior female scientists. ‘It’s resulted in a very eminent female senior scientist having to leave the country. It’s just craziness. I hope it puts some pressure on UCL.’

Sir Tim was speaking at a meeting of the World Conference of Science Journalists in Seoul, South Korea, when he made the controversial comments. He said: ‘Let me tell you about my trouble with girls. Three things happen when they are in the lab. You fall in love with them, they fall in love with you, and when you criticise them, they cry.’

A lecturer in science journalism at City University in London, Connie St Louis, who attended the meeting, then posted an article mentioning his remarks on Twitter entitled ‘Why are the British so embarrassing abroad?’ This sparked the massive witch-hunt.

Mrs St Louis, a former BBC radio producer, said the event was ‘utterly ruined’ and asked: ‘Really, does this Nobel laureate think we are still in Victorian times?’

The Mail later revealed she had falsified parts of her online CV.

Sir Tim, who said he was ‘hung out to dry’ by UCL, also resigned from posts at the prestigious Royal Society and the European Research Council.

Many high-profile women in the field leapt to Sir Tim’s defence, denying claims he was sexist. Figures ranging from Richard Dawkins, Brian Cox, and Mary Beard to Boris Johnson also voiced support for the scientist – but UCL refused to reinstate him.

Jonathan Dimbleby quit his honorary UCL fellowship, accusing the university of a ‘disgraceful’ rush to judgement.

In a statement, UCL president and provost Michael Arthur said he regretted accepting Sir Tim’s resignation but that reversing the decision would send out ‘entirely the wrong signal’.

ACADEMIC WHO HOUNDED HIM AND HER HISTORY OF LIES

As the backlash against Sir Tim Hunt gathered pace, its architect Connie St Louis was invited on Radio 4’s Today programme to discuss his supposed crimes against political correctness

By Guy Adams

As the backlash against Sir Tim Hunt gathered pace, its architect Connie St Louis was invited on Radio 4’s Today programme to discuss his supposed crimes against political correctness.

She leapt at the opportunity to shame him publicly.

Two days earlier, listeners were told, Sir Tim had been invited to propose the toast during a lunch for female journalists attending a conference in South Korea.

According to Mrs St Louis, he proceeded to deliver an outrageously misogynistic speech about the ‘trouble’ with female scientists which left his audience in a state of shock. ‘There was this deathly, deathly silence’ after he’d finished, she told the BBC. ‘No one laughed. Everybody was stony-faced.’

So far, so scandalous. Or at least it would have been, were her version of events actually true.

In the days and weeks that followed, it emerged that other witnesses remembered things very differently.

A transcript of the speech, written by an EU official, suggested Sir Tim’s supposedly sexist remarks were in fact intended as a joke – which Sir Tim himself confirmed.

He’d prefaced them with an ironic introduction about what a ‘chauvinist monster’ he was.

And mid-way through, Hunt had said ‘now seriously’, before talking at length about the ‘important role’ women actually play in science.

A recording of the speech, made by Russian journalist Natalia Demina, revealed that it was met with peals of laughter. And a photograph of the event showed Sir Tim and his audience smiling and applauding (rather than sitting, as Mrs St Louis had so vigorously claimed, in stony silence.)

Elsewhere, serious questions were soon raised about the professional credentials of Mrs St Louis, who runs a journalism course at London’s City University, after the Daily Mail revealed her CV on the institution’s website included several false claims.

It said she ‘writes for numerous outlets, including The Independent, Daily Mail, the Guardian [and] The Sunday Times’. However, there is no record of her ever having written for any of those titles, except for The Guardian, which has only ever published two articles by her, one of which was about Sir Tim.

Serious questions were soon raised about the professional credentials of Mrs St Louis, who runs a journalism course at London’s City University, after the Daily Mail revealed her CV included several false claims

The CV also described Mrs St Louis, 58, as an ‘award-winning broadcaster’ whose career highlights included ‘securing Bill Gates’ first British interview’.

But her interview with Gates was broadcast in November 1994, by which time he had appeared multiple times in British print, radio and TV interviews. The Microsoft founder’s first appearance on the BBC was in the early 1980s.

And in a second CV, which she published online, Mrs St Louis boasted of being a ‘Member of the Royal Institution’.

Yet a spokesman for the education and research organisation said: ‘Anyone can be a member ... it’s simply a service that you pay for which entitles you to free tickets and gives you a discount in our cafe.’

After the false claims emerged City was forced to remove Mrs St Louis’s CV from its website, while a spokesman said it intended to ‘help her update’ the document.

It was republished in late July. All print journalism experience was removed, and details of her radio career heavily edited.

Despite the controversy, Mrs St Louis today remains an employee at the university where, laughably, her duties involve teaching about journalistic ethics.

She also still sits on the board of the Association of British Science Writers, a fact that in October prompted Sir Colin Blakemore, one of the nation’s most eminent scientists, to resign as its honorary president.

He called Mrs St Louis’s treatment of Hunt ‘unbalanced, exaggerated, and selective’.