Overcoming resistance to transformation at universities

A few weeks ago, retired Judge Sisi Khampepe released her 184-page report on allegations of racism at Stellenbosch University.

The commission of inquiry was called for by the university management and the report makes three major points:

● Black students and staff still feel unwelcome;

● While the university has made “impressive theoretical strides” on transformation, such efforts were not felt in the lived experiences of staff and students; and

● The university should review its multilingual language policy “to remove the possibility of language exclusion through the preference of Afrikaans”.

The report is written with a soft hand and with considerable wisdom careful to recognise the rights of all South Africans including white, Afrikaans speakers.

Its closing arguments for change are not only structural but also surprisingly personal, making the point that rebuilding a campus and a country is impossible “unless every individual is willing to look inwards and change”.

So why has the report agitated the white right but, more importantly, what explains these public displays of racism?

In 2018 the minister of education’s investigatory committee released the so-called Soudien Report on “transformation, social cohesion [and] discrimination” in public universities.

That report was commissioned following the notorious Reitz (male residence) incident at the University of the Free State, where four white male students racially abused five black cleaners on the Bloemfontein campus.

The obvious question is why was there a need for a Khampepe Report (led by a judge) when the same ground was covered 14 years back by the Soudien Report (led by mainly academics)?

The reason you have this latter-day racism at Stellenbosch University is precisely because the university is changing, not because it is untransformed.

Ask yourself this question: why would both the Free State students and the now three incidents at Stellenbosch involve men and urine? Quite simple, actually. Just like dogs use urine to mark their territory and anxiety, white male students use the same strategy to protest against black incursion into their intimate spaces such as residences.

Stellenbosch now has more black students (almost half, the tipping point) than ever before in its 100-year history and more black academics than a mere decade ago.

English, not Afrikaans, has become the dominant language on campus.

Reitz happened when black student enrolments were escalating at the UFS and racially integrated residences was on the agenda; that is exactly the point at which Stellenbosch is now.

Hence the first urine incident at another white men’s residence, Huis Marais, that prompted the Khampepe inquiry.

The question is, what will the Stellenbosch leadership do in response to the Khampepe Report?

It should, to begin with, continue to ignore the apoplectic few on the white right raising hell about the threat to Afrikaans.

Remember, for these people it is not about Afrikaans; it is about white identity and cultural preservation. They just cannot imagine a world in which Afrikaans is simply another language in a richly multilingual world.

Put differently, the taalstryders do not know how to be without being dominant, and Afrikaans is one of the few remaining weapons in their arsenal to fight a war already lost.

Then the university needs to make quick and firm decisions on the transformation of the residences.

My experience is that there are many progressive white staff and students who can alongside their black counterparts completely rewire the social and cultural ethos of the residences so that the alienation many reported can be overcome.

No doubt, there will be a price to pay. Stellenbosch is by far the wealthiest public university on the African continent. The number of donors, mainly alumni, who give millions every year is unique.

The older residences at the former Afrikaans universities are endowed with deep meaning and commitment for alums.

You fool yourself if you think any leader can simply change a residence without severe backlash, both financial and political.

I have walked that path. And yet it has to be done to create over the long term more welcoming and affirming environments for both white and black staff and students.

And finally, the university has to accelerate the appointment of the most talented black academics across its faculties and campuses so that all students are exposed to scholars and scientists from around the country and the world.

The transformation of the professoriate would go a long way to deeply transforming a settled campus.