Oxford college really wants to remove Rhodes statue
Oriel College in Oxford has announced that it wants to remove the controversial statue of Cecil Rhodes.
The governors of the Oxford University university voted on Wednesday to eliminate the statue of the colonialist.
Campaigners have needed the statue to be taken down - saying it had been a symbol of imperialism and racism.
The removal isn't likely to be immediate - as the school says there will must be consultations over planning regulations.
The Rhodes Needs to Fall campaigners said the announcement was "hopeful", but warned they might remain cautious before college had actually completed the removal.
In a statement, campaigners said that before "Rhodes statue ceases to adorn the facade of Oriel College on Oxford's TRADITIONAL" there would be protests over "imperial and colonial iconography" in university buildings.
Oriel College's governors said your choice had been reached "after a thoughtful amount of debate and reflection" - and in "full knowing of the influence these decisions will probably contain in Britain and around the world".
The college or university is to launch an "independent commission of inquiry" in to the legacy of Cecil Rhodes, which also contains scholarships at the university.
The commission, to be headed by Carole Souter, will also consider wider issues, such as for example support for dark-colored and ethnic minority students and a commitment to "diversity" - and can consult with groups including students, residents, councillors and the Rhodes Has to Fall campaigners.
Susan Dark brown, leader of Oxford Metropolis Council, backed your choice to remove the statue - and said the college's inquiry would be a opportunity to decide where the statue will "best be curated in future".
The fate of the statue has divided opinion.
Previously Wednesday the universities minister had spoken against cell phone calls to remove the statue.
Michelle Donelan said it could be "short sighted" to attempt to "rewrite our record" - and rejected attempts to "censor or edit" days gone by.
"I would like to be really crystal clear that racism is abhorrent and must not be tolerated any place in our culture, and which includes universities," she told a Higher Education Policy Institute celebration.
Ms Donelan said she was against the renaming of structures named after the 19th Century statesman, William Gladstone, or the removal of the Rhodes statue.
Protesters on the streets of Oxford have needed the statue to be taken down, saying that it all represented imperialist values which were no longer acceptable.
But last week the vice-chancellor of Oxford University, Louise Richardson, gave little support for removing the statue - and warned against "hiding" days gone by.
"My own view on that is that hiding our background is not the route to enlightenment," Prof Richardson told the BBC.
"We want to understand why history and understand the context where it was manufactured and just why it was that persons believed then as they did," she said.
"This university has been around for 900 years. For 800 of these years the persons who ran the university didn't believe women were worth an education. Should we denounce those individuals?
"Personally, no - I believe they were wrong, nevertheless they need to be judged by the context of their time," said Prof Richardson.
