When it comes to cancel culture, no one is safe from its wrath – even Queen Elizabeth II.
Students at Magdalen College at Oxford removed a 1952 portrait of Queen Elizabeth II from a common room as an unwelcome symbol of “recent colonial history.”
According to Guido Fawkes, the right-wing website published by political blogger Paul Staines, a group of students – many of them international – voted by a substantial majority to take the portrait down and explore options to replace it with “art by or of other influential and inspirational people.”
“Stalin would be proud,” the Fawkes post said.
The post blasted the move as yet another example of “woke” culture, or as we like to call it here at Human Events: selective bigotry.
The reaction on social media speaks for itself.
Magdalen College students voted to take down a portrait of the Queen from their common room because she represents “colonialism”.
The Queen was a pioneer of anti-racism in an era of widespread segregation and apartheid.
Imagine trying to cancel the reigning monarch.
— Samantha Smith (@SamanthaTaghoy) June 8, 2021
Now these moronically woke students are trying to cancel the Queen.
You really couldn't make it up!https://t.co/plUWu8mlrz— Dan Wootton (@danwootton) June 8, 2021
The removed picture is a colorized print of a photo taken of Her Majesty in the year she became queen – 69 years ago, that is.
But, according to Matthew Katzman, president of the committee that voted to take the portrait down, it was done to make the room more “neutral” and welcoming, USA Today reports.
“The college will have plenty of depictions of various things, but the common room is meant to be a space for all to feel welcome.”
Dinah Rose, the barrister who is president of Magdalen, gave a reaction on Twitter, saying the decision to take the print down was up to the students, not the university itself.
“Maybe they’ll vote to put it up again, maybe they won’t. Meanwhile, the photo will be safely stored,” she wrote in a string of tweets. “Being a student is about more than studying. It’s about exploring and debating ideas. It’s sometimes about provoking the older generation. Looks like that isn’t so hard to do these days.”
They recently voted to take it down.
Both of these decisions are their own to take, not the College's.
Magdalen strongly supports free speech and political debate, and the MCR'S right to autonomy.— Dinah Rose (@DinahRoseQC) June 8, 2021
