Research on student responses to Critical Pedagogy frequently highlights their opposition to transformational agendas. This paper focuses on student opposition at a predominantly 'white' South African university to materials that represent the apartheid past. Engaging with the imperatives of transformation characterizing post-apartheid Higher Education in South Africa, and drawing on post-structuralist identity theory, the paper analyses contradictions in student discourses on the apartheid past. The paper concludes by considering the extent to which a focus on identity could contribute to dismantling opposition to Critical Pedagogy.