Ninomiya Sontoku - Controversy

Controversy

In October 1994, Rollins College, a small private liberal arts college in Winter Park, Florida, United States made international headlines when the government of Japan, per the request of its Okinawa Prefecture, asked for the return of a statue that was taken as war loot by Clinton C. Nichols, a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy and Rollins graduate after the Battle of Okinawa in 1946. Nichols presented the statue of Ninomiya Sontoku to then Rollins President Hamilton Holt who promised to keep the statue in the main lobby of the college's Warren Administration Building forever. At first, the college rejected the offer made by Okinawan officials, who suggested that a replica of the statue would be presented to the school if the original was returned to the island, however, after consulting both with the U.S. State Department and the college's board of trustees, then Rollins President Rita Bornstein accepted the offer and the statue was returned to Okinawa in 1995 in commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II. In addition to providing the college with a replica of the original statue, the government of Okinawa and Rollins signed an "an agreement of cooperation" that pledges to develop additional cooperative projects between the college and Shogaku Junior and Senior High School, the Okinawan school where the original statue has been placed.