An Indian couple will not continue with their legal battle against the University of Cape Town's admissions policy, after the Cape High Court refused to rule that their daughter be admitted to UCT's medicine programme.
High Court Justice Rosheni Allie last week declined to make an order that the couple's 17-year-old daughter, identified only as Sunira, be provisionally admitted to study medicine - pending a full judicial review of the university's medical school admission policy.
She also ruled that the couple should pay UCT's hefty legal costs.
Sunira was one of over 2 100 people who applied for 200 positions to study first-year medicine at UCT. Her parents decided to take UCT to court after her friend, Student B, also an Indian girl, was accepted by the university although her marks were not as good.
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| 'What is meant by disadvantaged... will no doubt occupy the attention of the court' |
She is currently studying for a BSc at UCT.
UCT admitted that it had offered the second girl a place in the belief that she was African. When it discovered its error, the university withdrew its offer, but reinstated it when the girl's parents threatened legal action.
Counsel for Sunira's parents, Norman Arendse, SC, and Anton Katz, claimed that the university's "purported admissions policy" discriminated against Indians.
They pointed to documents that showed that all African and coloured students who applied to study medicine at UCT were considered to be "educationally disadvantaged" even if they attended private schools.
By contrast, Indian students are divided into categories according to whether they attended private or government schools and are regarded as not having received a disadvantaged education under apartheid.
Judge Allie said UCT and Sunira's parents had agreed that the university's admission policy appeared to be discriminatory, but said they differed on whether "the discrimination is reasonable, justifiable and necessary to redress the past inequalities".
"A conclusion that the application of UCT's policy in the case of Sunira amounts to an infringement of her rights cannot be sustained.
"The objective reality is that students educated at schools previously set aside for African people, are more disadvantaged than others. The number of African candidates that achieved the minimum threshold score for matric results is testimony to that fact.
"The implementation of the university's policy as it pertains to Sunira has to be considered against this background," Judge Allie said, adding that UCT's understanding of "what is meant by disadvantaged... will no doubt occupy the attention of the court dealing with the review application".
Charles Abrahams, who represented the couple, said that Sunira's parents had decided not to continue with their review application - because it would probably only take place much later this year and therefore be no help to their daughter.
While "disappointed" by the ruling, Abrahams said, the couple were happy they "went the extra mile" in determining why Sunira's application had been rejected.
He added: "We feel the judgment in a sense does not deal with the issue of discrimination between African, coloured and Indian people who have all had privileged educational backgrounds."
- This article was originally published on page 8 of Cape Argus on March 07, 2005
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