Cambridge removes racist, stolen rooster statue after protests

Cambridge University in the UK is the latest school to take down a statue that students said was a commemoration of their school’s racist, colonialist past, after a handful of colleges in the U.S. took down confederate statues last year.

The statue at Cambridge is a bronze rooster named the “Okukor.” It was looted by British troops during the occupation of Benin City in 1897, the BBC reports, along with some 1,000 other bronze statues. It currently sits on display in the dining hall of one of the university’s colleges.

“The College commits to work actively with the wider University and to commit resources to new initiatives with Nigerian heritage and museum authorities to discuss and determine the best future for the Okukor, including the question of repatriation,” a university spokesperson told The Telegraph.

Students called for the bronze to be returned to a palace in Nigeria, according to The Times, but the school says there needs to be further investigation into where exactly the statue should be returned.

In a similar campaign at Oxford University, the administration at that school decided against removing a statue of colonialist businessman Cecil Rhodes, who is remembered as one of the architects of apartheid in South Africa.