Despite Oregon’s rich history of pioneering, students at a major public university in the state have condemned pioneering as being linked to crimes against Native Americans, and have set their eyes on removing a prominent statue linked to that history.
According to NPR, students at the University of Oregon have begun a campaign to pressure their school into removing a prominent 100-year-old statue of a generalized “pioneer” explorer, a statue they claim is a symbol of oppression to Native American students.
“It’s like a murderer being praised for what they did. I guarantee that if you got [Ted] Bundy’s statue up on campus, people are going to go hectic,” said Ryan Reed, a member of the Native American Student Union at the University of Oregon. “But they don’t think of that with the pioneer statue. It’s been so romanticized and whitewashed that a pioneer is a thing that is supposed to be positive.”
The statue, which stands 13 feet tall, depicts an explorer complete with a rifle slung over his shoulder and a whip in his hand. It was constructed in 1919, following a donation to the school during a time when it was common to celebrate the achievements of figures involved in early American exploration. It is also not named or dedicated to a specific figure in history, rather serving as a collective image of men from that time period.
Tensions over the statue reached a tipping point earlier this year, when the statue was discovered to have been vandalized in late April. The vandals painted over various parts of the statue in red and drew glasses on its head.
Despite their efforts, the school has not announced any plans to remove the statue from campus in the foreseeable future.
In the last school year there were several efforts by faculties and students attempting to shame their universities into renaming a building named after someone with a controversial past or removing an offensive statue.
Last month, the University of Minnesota defeated an intense effort by students and faculty to rename several buildings on the Twin Cities campus named for prominent individuals associated with the university’s history whom the students argued had allowed segregation of the campus at time it had not yet been outlawed in the United States. Notre Dame covered murals of Christopher Columbus. Most famously, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill removed any hint of the Confederate “Silent Sam” statue from campus.
John Patrick (@john_pat_rick) is a graduate of Canisius College and Georgia Southern University. He interned for Red Alert Politics during the summer of 2012 and has continued to contribute regularly.
