Jesus College alum throws tantrum after removal of bronze cock

In a letter objecting to the current trend of “student appeasement” in universities,  Francis Bown has stated that “there will be no mention of Jesus College, Cambridge” in his will “until the African cock returns to the hall in which [he] used to dine.”

These comments, published in The Telegraph, come in light of Jesus College’s decision to “permanently remove” the Benin bronze cockerel from its dining hall after the student union voted to repatriate the “okukor.”

Relating his grievances to the recent, and controversial Rhodes-must-fall campaign, the alumnus complained about the “supine appeasement” of authority figures in universities, and called for a “sterner approach” to the “silliness of undergraduates.”

The letter also made mention of Oriel College’s refusal to remove a  statue of Cecil Rhodes, after several alumni wrote to the college saying they would “disinherit the college from their wills.”

The actions of Oriel college left Bown to conclude that “Today’s dons seem to care about one thing above all: money.”

Accordingly, in an attempt to see the beloved cock returned to the hall,  Bown promised to cut Jesus college out of his will until the college implements the “sterner approach of [its]  predecessors.”

Feathers have been ruffled.

Bown, who recently suggested in a letter to The Times that “Rhodes must stay,” and suggested that “Oriel be renamed Cecil Rhodes College,” is not the first to protest the ostensible “silliness of undergraduates.”

The most recent edition of The Sunday Times has also focussed heavily on the culture of “political correctness” in Cambridge, featuring an article in its News Review by another Jesus alumnus displeased by the actions of “dons who should know a lot better”.

The author of the piece, Tony Allen-Mills, lambasted the college authorities: “I blame much of this mess not on idealistic students — idealism, like drunkenness, is an inevitable consequence of studenthood — but on the college dons who have agreed to open discussions about repatriating their pestilential cock to its original Nigerian home.”

“Their addled grasp of right and wrong suggests a new motto for a cockless college coat of arms: ‘Let’s not try to upset anyone’.”

The Sunday Times, 13th March

He added: “If we are going to start whining about looted cocks, how about an entire Cambridge college built on looted property? It was the shameful victimisation of a bunch of defenceless Benedictine nuns who were ruthlessly turfed out of their cloisters in 1496 that paved the way for Alcock’s vision of an all-male theocratic seminary.”

“Here’s the trouble with righting wrongs. You can start, but where do you stop?”

Alan Smithers of the University of Buckingham stated that “universities seem to make the mistake of taking [student] protests too seriously,” whilst Joanne Williams, education editor at Spiked also claimed that recent student proposals are “example(s) of how students are using history as a morality play to express their own moral superiority in the present.”

It is currently unknown whether any other alumni plan to cancel donations, or disinherit the college.