Protecting heritage buildings or disability rights?

Should universities respect the right for students with disabilities (SWDs) to accessible built environment or protect the heritage of campus old buildings despite being inaccessible to this group? This is one of the most difficult questions which many South African higher education institutions (HEIs) not only continue to grapple with, but also been hesitant to tackle.

Inclusive education policies as well as national building regulations oblige HEIs to ensure that SWDs should learn and live in accessibility friendly campus facilities.

Likewise, HEIs also have a legal obligation not to contravene heritage legislation by adapting old campus buildings without following the necessary procedures as this might result in prosecution and penalties.

Fortunately, my recent doctoral study (Chiwandire, 2021) of 28 Disability Unit Staff Members at 10 different South African HEIs gave me an opportunity to investigate issues related to the clash of accessibility rights for SWDs with HEIs’ obligations to protect their heritage buildings. A heritage building is “a structure that requires preservation because of its historical, architectural, cultural, aesthetic or ecological value” (Proptiger, 2016).

Disability policy framework

Historically, the built environment of most South African HEIs was built to exclude and not include SWDs, resulting in the minority of those who enrolled at these institutions facing physical barriers when navigating old buildings.

SA’s post-apartheid legislation like the 1999 National Heritage Resources Act, the 2008 National Building Regulations and Building Standards Act and the 2001 Education White Paper 6 now impose an obligations institutions to strike a fair balance in protecting the heritage of certain campus buildings while also ensuring that such buildings are fully accessible to SWDs. However, in practice, as the findings of my study show, most HEIs are often defaulting on their obligations to promote accessibility standards, thus putting the rights of SWDs especially wheelchair users in jeopardy.

Preservation proponents

Several participants endorsed the idea of protecting heritage buildings on the part of their institutions even though doing so may compromise SWDs’ right to access buildings. This was then used as one of the justificatory reasons as to why rehabilitating heritage buildings is beyond their universities’ control as they believe that heritage legislation provisions should cannot be questioned.

We have many historical heritage buildings which we are not allowed to renovate which makes it difficult to put in an elevator (Albany). There is the Heritage Act that you need to respect and preserve the building on the one hand, so there are also those kinds of challenges (James).

What further complicates the issue of making heritage buildings more accessible at certain universities is the geographic location on which certain institutions are located, especially if a university is built on a historical site. Changing things like that is not easy, especially on this campus, because this is part of District Six. It’s a historical area, so we are not really able to make too many massive changes (Claudine).

Universities obsessed with prioritising the provisions heritage preservation legislation are rather opting to continue functioning with inaccessible libraries instead of taking the initiative to change this. We cannot make changes in our library because it’s a heritage site, it was designed and won a world prize for its architecture, but it does not have a lift. We are sitting with that thorny issue. We would like to make it more accessible, but we have to get permission (Michelle).

Moderate view to preservation

While acknowledged the merits of protection of the historic character of old buildings, some participants suggested this ought to be balanced with ensuring accessibility rights for SWDs are not compromised. I have referred to this approach as a ‘moderate view’ which if operationalise can be beneficial to both HEIs as well as SWDs themselves as evidenced by the following participants:

Some of our oldest universities in the country have done a lot to make their buildings safe and accessible for disabled students so I would say that the architecture is important but so are the rights of these students (Roy).

They must do away with cherishing historical heritage at the cost of disabled people, its discrimination. The installment of a lift does not require changing the whole building. I don’t think that will affect the way that building looks (Puleng).

Other participants have cautioned against HEIs abusing the heritage preservation argument as a way to escape their legal obligations to add necessary accessibility features on buildings:

Making the building accessible does not necessarily change the image of the building in any way. You just put a ramp so that the person can access a building, or you can just install a lift. Yeah, I think it is just an excuse (Mbeko).

Making old buildings accessible is not changing the whole building but adding the ramp to accommodate the person with a disability (Lesego).

Heritage preservation critics

Preserving heritage buildings at the cost of accessibility standards has been questioned as unrealistic for various reasons by other participants. For the following participant, both accessibility concerns and the safety of buildings to SWDs should be an overriding factor over inaccessible old campus heritage buildings: I think it’s ridiculous, I mean seriously, the historical heritage of a building! They should make changes where they can so that they are safe and accessible for everyone including students with disabilities (Dineo).

Protection of heritage buildings has also been criticised not only as a grave human rights violation of numerous democratic principles enshrined in the Constitution of SA as well as in disability policies:

You can’t have inaccessible old buildings, it’s discrimination. If I was a student there and they told me that I would drag them to court. It’s unconstitutional to do that. You need to include everyone (Tracy).

If you are going to maintain the facade of this building and then exclude some person from accessing it, is that what human rights, justice, fairness and equality? If a person can’t access the building that is totally unacceptable (Fatima).

Political will for accessibility

Other participants believe that university management personnel’s political will has an impact on making campus heritage buildings more accessible. Such political will as suggested by the following participants should also be backed by the allocation of financial resources for accessibility initiatives:

If you take something like Oxford University or Cambridge University that are a thousand years old and they’ve managed to make most of their buildings accessible. So it can be done but there has got to be the political will and the willingness to spend money (Catherine).

I think to me the commitment becomes critical. You need leadership on this one, because without leadership it becomes a challenge (James).

University management personnel in some institutions have been commended for earmarking financial resources for rehabilitating old inaccessible buildings, thus making them best practice exemplars in promoting accessibility:

Actually what we are sitting in now was called a heritage building, but nonetheless you will see we have a ramp put into the building. Our university management are not letting the heritage status detract from making the buildings accessible by putting accessibility features (Craig).

Other participants have highlighted the need to move away from a top/down in favour of a bottom/up approach in which SWDs themselves are involved in inclusive dialogues focusing on how heritage buildings could best be made more accessible: We really get stuck on saying it’s difficult to make that building accessible. It’s always important to involve a person with a disability in the talks and the process (Lynette).

Way forward

The participants’ narratives show us how the provisions of inclusive education policies, heritage legislation and the national building regulations are being implemented unsystematically by different HEIs depending on their commitment to prioritise accessibility or heritage protection. Also, the absence of national effective monitoring mechanisms could be one of the reasons why most HEIs are lagging behind in making their heritage buildings fully accessible.

This reinforces the social exclusion of SWDs in the form of denying this group equal opportunities to live independently and participate fully in the academic and social life of their campuses. Today as we celebrate Heritage Day in SA, it is crucial to call upon all relevant stakeholders in HEIs including SWDs themselves, architectures with professional expertise in universal design as well as heritage consultants to collaborate and come up with creative ways of addressing built environment barriers as a matter of urgency.

References: Chiwandire, D (2021). Munhu wese ihama yako (Everyone is Your Relative): Ubuntu and the Social Inclusion of Students with Disabilities at South African Universities. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Rhodes University. Grahamstown. Proptiger (2016). An Explainer: Heritage Building.