Tearing Down Golden Calves: Protest, Commemoration, and the Politics of Institutional Change in South Africa and the United States

Abstract

This thesis examines how universities respond to students' protests that challenge their commemoration of historical figures, focusing on the University of Cape Town after the Rhodes Must Fall movement and at Princeton University after the occupation and protest of the Black Justice League. It asks how institutions negotiate demands to remove or reinterpret contested symbols and what these responses reveal about their commitment to racial justice and institutional transformation. Using a comparative qualitative methodology, this thesis draws on archival materials, institutional reports, public statements, and student writings to analyze the institutional negotiations between the #RhodesMustFall movement and UCT and the Black Justice League at Princeton. In both cases, student activists framed their demands as extending beyond symbolic removal to broader critiques of institutional racism and exclusion. I argue that universities adopt strategic and often inconsistent approaches that prioritize institutional legitimacy and narrative control over commitments to radical institutional change. The findings show that Princeton and UCT responded through symbolic gestures that absorbed and neutralized critique, attempting to recast themselves as committed to institutional reform without addressing structural issues. It recommends that universities adopt consistent principles for evaluating contested figures, move beyond symbolic change toward material transformation, and formally recognize student activism as a driver for institutional change through the symbolic memorialization of their movements.