Call for plan to address transformation at tertiary level

Last month, Independent Media published a piece penned by a former employee of Stellenbosch University who said that racial gaslighting and micro-aggressions were still experienced at the institution. Picture: Paul Joubert-Supplied

Last month, Independent Media published a piece penned by a former employee of Stellenbosch University who said that racial gaslighting and micro-aggressions were still experienced at the institution. Picture: Paul Joubert-Supplied

Published Mar 15, 2022

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CAPE TOWN - Alleged anti-transformation practices at a tertiary institution is a cause for concern, and some analysts who believe it’s indicative of how deep the issue goes in South Africa at large have called for a substantive and systematic plan to address it meaningfully.

The call was made following allegations of anti-transformation practices were levelled at Stellenbosch University in the Western Cape recently.

The university came under fire and was labelled a racist institution after its Twitter page showed a picture featuring mostly white women in celebration of International Women’s Day last week.

The picture, which was removed after the outcry, was posted with the caption: “Theme of #InternationalWomen’sDay this year is #BreakTheBias, marking a call to celebrate the achievement of women’s equality. To mark this day, women in top management at SU share their views on this issue…”. The post was labelled “tone deaf”, with education activist Hendrick Makaneta calling on the portfolio committee on higher education to “wake up from slumber” and call Stellenbosch University management to appear before it and account on how far they have gone with regards to transformation at the institution since 1994.

Last month, Independent Media published a piece penned by a former employee of Stellenbosch University who said that racial gaslighting and micro-aggressions were still experienced at Stellenbosch University.

The writer said that during her employment, she had to “check” her thoughts a few times as some of the incidents were borderline prejudice “where the veils between what is politically incorrect or something said in jest are separated by a hairline”.

She said that everything was going well, but all of a sudden and in an unprincipled manner, the freelancer she was working with abrasively exclaimed that their working relationship would function “so long as I did exactly as he instructed, no questions asked”.

“Mind you, he was in no position to instruct me, nor was he a permanent employee at the institution. So why did this man believe I was beneath him, and not his equal? I was obviously taken aback.

“It dawned on me afterwards that this person never once spoke to my white female colleagues disrespectfully, so what was the problem?” she stated in her piece.

The institution came under the spotlight in 2015 when a documentary titled Luister, exposing ongoing racism and discrimination at Stellenbosch University, went viral.

The film included interviews with 32 students and one lecturer at the university in which they detailed their experiences of racist abuse, in the community and at the university, and their struggles with learning under the language policy they say clearly favoured Afrikaans speakers. The viral video resulted in the university’s management appearing before the National Assembly’s higher education committee, where it explained its transformation plans and its response to the documentary. It also resulted in students from different universities joining forces to march against racism.

Political analyst Sanusha Naidu said the challenge was knowing how much the university took from such incidents to integrate it with its transformation agenda. She said that in all of the above incidents, it was clear that the university understood the issues at hand but the problem was “what is being said on paper is not being done in practice”.

She said this was indicative of how deep and unsettling transformation was in South Africa.

“It becomes more important to reflect how much of what is happening at Stellenbosch University represents what is happening in South Africa,” Naidu said.

She called for a “substantive and systematic” transformation plan to be adopted and applied in the country, including tertiary institutions.

Political analyst Bheki Mngomezulu said that while tertiary institutions were controlled by the government, they also had their own councils that made critical decisions.

“And for as long as those councils believe what is happening is in order, there will never be change,” he said.

Mngomezulu said that the government needed to intervene as it was a cause for concern and that such institutions received government funding “which come from taxpayers that are not from one segment of society”.

“People’s monies are being used for personal interest in that case.

“Putting together a document with their plans for transformation is one thing but actioning it is another. This document must be presented to the relevant departments and there needs to be stringent follow-up visits and punitive action taken against the universities if it’s not adhered to,” Mngomezulu said.

Independent Media sent a media query including questions to Stellenbosch University; however, while the spokesperson responded at length, he stated that his response was “of course not official comment in any sense”. No further comments or responses were received from the university.

Political Bureau