Rhodes Scholarships

[user8558]

Is it morally wrong to benefit from wealth that was derived from slavery?

Yes - YANBU
No - YABU

Fwiw, I think it's fine, positive in fact that it gives people opportunities in life.

But I can see why others might disagree

I think it needs to be acknowledged and actively used to level the playing field.

Well the money is there.

What do you propose to do with it?

it depends: is it usually awarded to white middle-class men? how diverse are the awards?

I agree that since the money is there it should be used - but it should be used to give advantages to those who wouldn't otherwise have them. (

I thought they were often awarded to African students? And other foreign students who would never have otherwise gone to University? I may be wrong but that’s the impression I had.

They are awarded to students from lots of countries; the list of countries includes a lot of Africa, but the numbers of scholarships available to each country tells a different picture:
www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/scholarships/list-of-rhodes-scholarship-constituencies/

@Brefugee

it depends: is it usually awarded to white middle-class men? how diverse are the awards?

I agree that since the money is there it should be used - but it should be used to give advantages to those who wouldn't otherwise have them. (

Well the former Prime Minister of Pakistan and journalist Leana Wen was also a recipient. So it’s not exclusive to white men. It was actually specifically for non U.K. members of the commonwealth to create unity between all of the countries so I think the sentiment behind it was reasonable. Maybe not the initial exclusion of women but thankfully times have moved on a bit.

The awards aren't made on race. Having said that, the only two names on the list I knew without checking were both white men. (My high school English and History teacher, and Bill Clinton.)

You can type a country name in one the following page to see where people are from

www.rhodeshouse.ox.ac.uk/alumni-volunteers/rhodes-scholar-database/

For example, if you type in India, you get a lot of people from India who don't sound like they're white. You also get people from Indiana, who probably mostly are.

So if they're not exclusively, or even mostly, going to white men, and are instead diverse that seems to be a very good use of the fund.

What is the choice?

Burn the money?

Or put it to good use?

Education is not something to be wasted. Opportunities for increasing knowledge and diverist of the awards should be taken.

And there are a lot of countries with a lot of wealth derived from slavery. Not just the UK. The only thing we should be doing about slavery at this precise moment in time is rooting it out and stopping it TODAY!! Pontificating over historical slavery means many people have no idea it is not a thing of the past!

www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2013/10/17/this-map-shows-where-the-worlds-30-million-slaves-live-there-are-60000-in-the-u-s/

It should be pointed out that the Wealth funding the Rhodes scholars came from mining, not slavery...

@JohnRokesmith

Please don't let facts get in the way of the point the OP is making.

It’s actually not a slavery matter but that Cecil Rhodes essentially invented apartheid and was racist even in the standards of his own day.

In recent years they seem to have made more effort to select ethnic minorities which I suppose is a posthumous F off to old Cecil. I’d love them the name but I think I read that the terms of the trust don’t allow it.

You'll find what Nelson Mandela thought here: www.mandelarhodes.org/about/story/