The South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) on Thursday condemned the violent actions of students and workers at the University of the Free State and the University of Pretoria.
SAHRC spokesman Isaac Mangena said the Commission was concerned over “reports of violent act of racism between students and workers” at these two universities.
He said the Commission urged the institutions “to work together with student bodies to expedite resolutions on transformation, language policies and race relations, among others”.
Mangena said: “Whilst the Commission applauds efforts and initiatives that both these Universities are taking to address racism in their campuses, and other issues, including language policies and transformation, these incidents highlight a broader need for the systemic challenges of racial divisions that exist in some of the country’s institutions of higher learning, and in society in general.”
He further stated that last year the Commission recognised “the magnitude of the challenge of racism on university campuses” and as a result, initiated a National Hearing into Transformation in Institutions of Higher Learning.
A broad range of stakeholders, from academic staff, student representative councils, vice chancellors, university administration, networks of concerned civil society bodies, and government made submissions to the Commission.
The hearing, Mangena said, “focused on identifying the factors that sustain racism in our universities and measures that can be undertaken to create better levels of racial cohesion and tolerance.”
The current level of violence was not acceptable and Mangena added: “The Commission has already launched an own initiative investigation into the chaos at the University of Free State, and is planning to visit University of Pretoria to see how we can intervene.”
He noted that to this effect, the Commission intended to issue its findings and recommendations to stakeholders on outcomes of the visit before the end of June 2016.
Furthermore, the SAHRC would be hosting a multi-sectoral dialogue on racism as part of its 20-year anniversary conference. Mangena said “this dialogue aims to emerge with a Declaration to eradicate racism in all its forms. This declaration will be signed by all stakeholders as a commitment to collaborate to fight racism in all its modern permutations.”
– African News Agency (ANA)