Professor Elelwani Ramugondo – Deputy Vice-Chancellor of UCT: Transformation, Student Affairs and Social Responsiveness – who is currently under disciplinary investigation for having posted a racially offensive message on social media regarding a constructively-dismissed fellow DVC, and then untruthfully denying under oath for doing so – has invited members of UCT’s Community to “participate” in a “comprehensive review” of UCT’s new Policy on Anti-Racism, Racial Discrimination and Racial Harassment, updated and approved by Council on 18 June 2022.
Who’s the Boss?
Under the direction of Black Academic Caucus founder Ramugondo, UCT’s new anti-racism policy is implemented by cadre within her Office for Inclusivity & Change (OIC). The OIC was created in 2016/17 as an “active home and promoter of social justice on campus”. It has the “primary responsibility for the design and content management and/or coordination and/or implementation of training and awareness programmes for anti-racism”. It is also “responsible for mapping the university’s response to transformation initiatives relating to decoloniality, inclusion and marginalization“ and “steering policy action”.
UCT’s Ikeys can participate in this review process by: completing an electronic survey (which I couldn’t download); attending stakeholder engagements; and/or attending an open consultation in the Mafeje Room in Bremner Building.
But just what is UCT’s Policy on Anti-Racism?
The 41-page, data- and reference-free and policy document assumes that UCT is permeated by “pervasive” “cultural racism” outlined as a “social phenomenon that extends beyond racial discrimination and racial harassment as defined in legislation”. Indeed, “race need only be one factor among several in order for there to be a finding of racial discrimination. Related [identity-based] grounds of racial discrimination include, language, ethnic origin, ancestry, place of origin, citizenship and religion”.
Furthermore, racism at UCT is an “ideology that explicitly or implicitly asserts that one race group is inherently superior to others”. It is “deeply rooted in attitudes, values and stereotypical beliefs tied to the aspect of power, i.e. the social, political, economic and institutional power that is held by the historically dominant group in society”. Racist acts, “whether intentional or not”, target a “person or a group’s racial identity” and aim to exclude “the oppressed group from the workings of the institution so that those holding power in the institution can maintain their power, and thus their governance over the oppressed and/or previously oppressed”. Racial discrimination may be “demeaning and/or may have the effect of imposing burdens or lack of benefits on individuals or groups by virtue of their identity”. It can even be “a single incident, that demeans, humiliates or creates a hostile or intimidating environment, or is calculated to induce submission by actual or threatened adverse consequences”.
UCT-racism in all it alleged guises is also assumed to be perpetuated by “individuals, organizational/institutional structures and programmes”, “as well as in individual thought or behaviour patterns”. In its “more entrenched forms it is often unconsciously applied and its operation is often unrecognized, even by those practising it”.
In short, anti-racism at UCT as defined above and the racial justice steered and implemented by the OIC does not simply mean being anti or against racism. It means adopting a highly contentious (collapsing?) racialised worldview that frames all disadvantages experienced by “black” people as the result of “systemic racism”, created to promote “white supremacy” and “the only remedy to racist discrimination is antiracist discrimination”.
Thus, Ramugondo’s OIC plays a (the?) key role in the process of ‘racial justice’ at UCT “seek[ing] to eliminate racial harassment and racial discrimination through education and engagement programmes or through disciplinary measures”. The ‘Advisors’ to these programmes and within disciplinary hearings or tribunals are “staff members of the University who have been trained and appointed by the OIC”. Anti-racism “Advisory panels”, “Special Tribunals” and “Evaluation Panels” are comprised of “suitably qualified persons”, “staff members, students and/or experts [trained by the OIC?] in the field of anti-oppression and/or anti-racism” and may conduct their business “in either an informal or a formal process” that “allows for anonymous and confidential reports to be logged” and communicated to the OIC. Additional persons involved in this process are “Case Officers” and “Evidence Leaders” who (trained by the OIC?) “oversee, monitor and manage all aspects of formal procedures” and assist ‘Complainants’ who can state (anonymously and confidentially) that “a person, department, faculty group or third-party service provider has allegedly committed an act of racial harassment or racial discrimination, or an act that may reasonably have been believed to fit the prescribed definition”.
Although, some might argue – virtually also without evidence – that this new policy benefits racism-rid UCT, I and many members of UCT’s non-racialist ‘Silenced Community see it as reminiscent of the Spanish Inquisition and US Salem Witch Trials and McCarthyism,
But, is UCT really rife with long-entrenched racism?
In 1918, UCT ‘speciated’ from the South African College School and ‘evolved’ within a city where anti-essentialist ideologies of non-racialism, radical liberal and African nationalist ideologies have a long history. Nevertheless, despite this relatively progressive setting, like virtually all ‘western’ universities globally, Her VCs resisted admitting more than a token (but growing) number of non-white students (see here and here). However, from virtually day one of the Apartheid Era, VC TB Davie – backed universally by the entire Ikey community, declared Her to be an open and “real” university with the autonomy to decide:
1.“who shall teach;
- what we teach –the truth;
- how we teach – not subject to interference aimed at standardization at the expense of originality; and [most importantly]
- whom we teach.
Yet, in September 2020, UCT ‘powers-that-were’ announced a Council- (but not Senate?) approved “updated vision” for Her institutional race-related transformation (led by Ramugondo). Disturbingly to many Ikeys, it appeared to promote US-like “anti-racism” incompatible with non-racialism, a value enshrined in South Africa’s Constitution. When pressed, the announcement was quickly edited to read that UCT’s vision was actually to “embrace inclusivity and promote non-racialism”.
This ‘retraction’ was patently false, since Ramugondo’s OIC had twice invited Robin DiAngelo, the American guru of “antiracist training”, to UCT where she promoted her racialised stereotypes (and without any evidence) about “white” people as inherently racist and as continuing to benefit from systemic “white” domination and “white privilege”.
The OIC has also advocated rolling out antiracist/diversity training that promotes DiAngelo-style racial stereotypes about “white” people as arrogant perpetrators and “black” people as their fragile victims. This ‘updated’ whites-only-racist policy undermines the 2009 policy that had clearly identified that racism can be expressed by any person, irrespective of how they identify or are identified. Under the updated, new policy, it is now potentially a racist act to even attempt to discuss what constitutes racism, let alone assert that UCT staunchly, but peacefully, resisted apartheid and, when the opportunity arose during Stuart Saunders’ VC-ship, he and his team and his two successors put non-racial constructive transformation into high gear.
To learn more about these halcyon years, please read my forthcoming ‘Mirrors’ pieces on Sir Richard Luyt, Stuart Saunders, Mamphela Ramphele and Njabulo Ndebele. Then, of course, is my already-published piece on Max Price.
In the meantime, barring some effective Stalingrad strategy, I look forward to hearing the findings of the already-delayed disciplinary hearing into DVC Ramugondo’s alleged anti-racist comments on ex-DVC Liz Lange, and await possible sanctions by the OIC anti-racist squad.
