The University of Cape Town (UCT): Racist/Sexist/Colonialist institution? 1949-1972

The University of Cape Town (UCT): Racist/Sexist/Colonialist institution? 1949-1972

https://www.biznews.com/thought-leaders/2017/01/26/uct-racism-sexism/  

No in principle, yes in practice.

Emeritus Prof. Tim Crowe

Post World War II - seeds for decolonization

Politician/activist/UCT-graduate Colin Eglin wrote: “I returned from the war with a deep revulsion for Nazism and fascism, and with a realisation that systems based on racial discrimination and exclusion were no longer acceptable”.  He and other veterans demanded local “unity and co-operation among races which was achieved on the battlefield”.  Moreover, locally, segregation/prejudice had been dampened to accommodate needs created by war.

In 1945, Afrikaner Education Minister JH Hofmeyr, announced that universities could not legally refuse admission to students based on ‘colour’/‘race’.  Furthermore, UCT increased its intake of ‘non-white’ medical students to cater for the needs of this ‘group’. 

By 1948, the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) voted to accept that “academic non-segregation” be included in its aims, causing UCT to threaten to withdraw from NUSAS.  UCT ’walked’ a zigzag path, showing acquiescence/defiance towards the government’s segregationist policies. 

In 1950, UCT’s Students Representative Council (SRC) boycotted a national meeting when "non-European" universities, Sastri and Fort Hare, were not invited to attend.

By 1951, students began to vigorously debate academic segregation at UCT, concluding that it was an ’ideal worth fighting for’, but stressing that academic, and not social, equality was what they wanted.

In 1953, two ‘Bantu’ students were elected to UCT’s SRC.  In 1962, Elizabeth Thaele became the first ‘non-white’ woman head student, and eminent civil servant/activist Zainunnisa “Cissie” Gool (Abdurahman) received an LLB degree, resulting in her admission as an advocate to the Supreme Court.

In 1957, UCT/Wits published a booklet, The Open Universities in South Africa, declaring unambiguous opposition to the extension of apartheid to universities since it violated the principle of academic freedom.  UCT argued that it had to defend its institutional freedom, but was not obliged to protest attacks on society’s freedoms.  In short, UCT was non-racial in academic principle, but socially as racist as ever, all of this being cloaked by political “neutrality”.   

Thus, UCT effectively buttressed the status quo, maintaining white/male supremacy and aggravating, rather than healing, fundamental social inequalities.  Still, only a tiny percentage of UCT’s student population was ‘non-white’.  There were virtually no ‘non-white’ academics/senior administrative staff and only a token number of women academics.

Consistent with this, in 1959, at “a great meeting” held in Jameson Hall, a solemn dedication was read out and signed by UCT’s chancellor, vice-chancellor, the president of the convocation and many of its members:

“We dedicate ourselves to the tasks that lie ahead: to maintain our established rights to determine who shall teach, what shall be taught, and how it shall be taught without regard to any criterion except academic merit.”

Soon thereafter, the Extension of University Education Act ‘conveniently’ made it a criminal offense for non-white students to register at UCT without government permission.  It also created new universities for designated groups of ‘non-whites’.  Also, the University of South Africa’s status as an open, distance-education university was used as an additional ‘excuse’ for UCT’s evading the admission of ‘non-white’ students.

Academic fiefdoms adapt

Concurrent with nominal academic resistance to apartheid came a ‘relaxation’ of powers of omnipotent professors.  Typical of this was Zoology’s HOD John Day (1946-1974), a disabled war-veteran.  Day remained an academic ‘dictator’, insisting that ‘his’ staff work as a team on marine taxonomic/ecological topics chosen by him.  

Nevertheless, he was concerned with the views/welfare of students.  He introduced an annual field camp involving close personal/professional communication/collaboration with them.  During anti-apartheid protests in 1972, he made off towards the troubles as quickly as his artificial leg allowed saying: “Must support my students”.  In the subsequent altercation, he was bitten by a police dog, fortunately on that tissue-free leg!

Although, the marine biology programme that ‘Day Team’ developed achieved world-wide recognition, his postgraduates (including his wife Jenny Day) worked closely with Assoc. Prof. Alec Brown to begin a meaningful ‘decolonization’ of the department. 

Two largely unsung academics in the department during the Day Era were Naomi Millard and Jennifer Jarvis.  Both were members of a breed of zoologists now virtually extinct, equally at home with the ecology, taxonomy and functional anatomy of animals of all persuasion.  Naomi was awarded the Gold Medal of the Zoological Society of Southern Africa as well as Fellowship of the Royal Society of South Africa in 1963.

‘Jenny’ (no one ever called her anything else) Jarvis was a junior lecturer in the 1960s, returning to UCT as a lecturer in 1971.  Her remarkable discovery of eusociality in the naked mole-rat is the most noteworthy scientific discovery by a UCT zoologist.  Eusociality is typical of social insects and was previously unknown in mammals, and her presentation on her discovery at the American Society of Mammalogists elicited an unprecedented standing ovation.   But, only close to her retirement was she made a Fellow of the Royal Society of South Africa, honoured with a Distinguished Teachers’ Award and promoted ad hominem to full professor.

Naiomi and Jenny were warm, friendly and concerned academics, much loved by both students and colleagues.  Four of Jenny’s postgraduates became professors at local and/or international universities.   UCT would not be in dire situation it is today if its core academics emulated her and Naomi.

The beginning of the beginning

The real beginning of the ‘decolonization’ (DC) of UCT came with AC Jordan.  More than anyone, he “opened the [DC] door to UCT and kept it ajar”.  This novelist/literary-historian/linguist intellectually pioneered African Studies internationally when he was appointed as a senior lecturer in 1946, and was UCT’s first ‘black’ Ph.D. graduate (1957).  Sadly, he was forced into exile in the USA in 1961.  Unlike many Fallists, he was a humanist and a gentleman.

 In 1993, his legacy was honoured with the establishment of the AC Jordan Chair in African Studies.   This long overdue act precipitated two of UCT’s DC ‘perfect academic storms’.

By the late 1960s, students began participating in faculty boards, Senate and committees which included members of Council.  It was also a time of flourishing academic excellence sadly only featuring white males.

The Mafeje ‘Affair’
Other than current intimidation/violence/destruction, the most disgraceful event in UCT’s history was its Executive and Council’s refusal in 1968 to confirm the academic appointment of pan-Africanist ‘Archie’ Monwabisi Mafeje.  Mafeje’s appointment was sabotaged by UCT’s ‘Old Boy’ network who feared an infusion of his aggressively-promoted, radical socio-economic-political and academic ideas, developed initially in collaboration with anthropologist Prof. Monica Wilson, UCT’s most prominent woman academic at the time.
Some students/staff strongly protested this dastardly action, but primarily because it violated UCT’s academic freedom, and not to promote non-racialism.

In 1969, this and other indignities perpetrated especially by English-speaking liberals, caused ‘non-white’ students led by Steve Biko and Barney Pityana to secede from the UCT/Wits-led NUSAS, leading ultimately to the genesis of the Black Consciousness Movement.

The early 1970s
By the early 1970s, departmental headships began to rotate, but power was still vested in faculty deans.  The SRC adopted a constitution which prohibited apartheid in UCT clubs/societies.  SRC president Geoff Budlender was amongst the first members of the ‘system’ to call for UCT to decolonize elitist education and focus more on producing graduates well qualified to work in socio-economically oppressed areas.

His pleas fell on deaf ears. 



This unauthorized distillation is biased towards events in UCT’s Faculties of Science and Humanities.  The major sources are: Zoology Prof. Alec Brown’s Centennial history of the Zoology Department, University of Cape Town, 1903–2003: A personal memoir, University of Cape Town at 150: Reflections edited by Alan Lennox-Short and David Welsh, and  Prof. Lungisile Ntsebeza’s What can we learn from Archie Mafeje about the Road to Democracy in South Africa?.