Mirrors of UCT: Sir Richard Luyt

Vice Chancellors (VC) as ‘mirrors’ of the history of the University of Cape Town (UCT): Part 4 – Sir Richard Luyt UCT’s “breath of fresh air”, “baptist under fire” and anti-Apartheid warrior! Sir Richard Luyt (1968-1980)

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Richard Luyt UCT Vice Chancellor

Like VC JP Duminy, his successor Sir Richard Luyt, was a South African born all-round sportsman. Academically however, Luyt was a less-than-stellar UCT undergraduate and, when Sir ‘Jock’ Beattie capped him, he apparently said: “I am surprised to see you here.” Luyt continued his education as a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, obtaining an MA degree. After serving in the military with distinction in WWII, he returned to Oxford where his thinking on his beloved Africa was strongly influenced by British historian of, and writer on, African affairs Dame Margery Freda Perham DCMG CBE FBA. She was known especially for the intellectual force of her arguments in favour of British decolonisation in the 1950s and 1960s.

Thereafter, Luyt had a distinguished career as a British colonial servant, ultimately serving, again with distinction (honoured by knighthood), as a colonial governor and then governor-general with a deep understanding of ‘matters African’. There was no other South African of his generation, white or black, who could count Hailie Selassie, Tom Mboya, Odinga Odinga, and Kenneth Kaunda as close personal friends. His direct experience of the decolonial process was in British Guiana/Guyana but he well-understood the situation in Zambia and Kenya.

Despite all this, in his second tome on UCT’s official history – UCT under APARTHEID: PART 1 – From ONSET to SIT-IN – 1948–1968 –  Howard Phillips concludes that ‘untrustworthy’ and ‘two-faced’ Duminy and Luyt undermined the achievements of ‘principled-principal’ VC TB Davie backed by UCT’s Bloedsappe Council. They were ‘Quisling’ apologists of apartheid who collectively “kowtowed” to the Government and “colluded” with the Regime vis-à-vis its “unfolding” racial discrimination.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

Luyt was sportsman who valued tradition, fair-play and the rule of law. He was a devout Christian, accomplished diplomat and good communicator with a great sense of humour. Owing to his “boyish enthusiasm and optimism” and “outgoing personality”, from day one as VC when he assumed responsibility for 7 392 students, he was a “breath of fresh air” who rapidly ended the few racist policies and practices that lingered on after the Duminy Era, especially relating to petty apartheid and social segregation.

Still, because he had no training or experience as an academic, at the beginning of his administration, he sought advice of members of Council, deans and other senior academics to hasten the development of academic (and especially research) excellence and non-racialism at UCT. In doing this, he “brought peace to the University”, “restoribg dignity to the office [of VC] and to the University” and was an “unwavering friend of students”, revoking an attempt to impose a proposed new constitution on the SRC that would have undermined its authority. He ended Duminy’s over-formalized administrative style and resistance to mixed-race socialization; and reversed Duminy’s repeated refusal to be an honorary vice-president of the National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) because of its inappropriate political connections. After his retirement, during the turbulent 1980s, Luyt “stuck his neck out” for anti-apartheid students, supporting the End Conscription Campaign.

So much done by someone described as a ‘’kowtower’.

As with VC Duminy, Luyt’s administration overlapped with the tenure of an Apartheid prime minister, pro-Nazi BJ ‘John’ Vorster.  But, the most telling ‘hospital pass’ from the previous administration was the “Mafeje Affair” (see here and here), described by UCT Prof. Lungisile Ntsebeza as Luyt’s “baptism of fire”.

The Mafeje Affair

Nearly 700 students/staff (10% of the student body including subsequently assassinated Rick Turner) anticipated Fallists and occupied Bremner Building to challenge Council’s decision. Unlike Fallists, they did so peacefully and did not prevent staff from doing their work. Maurice Pope, Professor of Classics and Dean of Arts, resigned in protest. But, these collective protests focused on violation of Daviean Academic Freedom (see here and here), not of Mafeje’s human rights as a ‘black’ man.

For a markedly different interpretation of the Mafeje Affair, Dr Fred Hendricks concludes that de Klerk’s threat was a “vague whim” and: “There was clearly a certain common purpose between the two men [de Klerk and Luyt] and by extension between the state and UCT and in this exercise in consensus building Luyt was being enlisted in the service of the state.” In short: “Mafeje was the victim of collusion between the apartheid state and the University of Cape Town”. The “scheming and compliant” Luyt “opted for a cosy relationship with the state” and acted as the State’s agent to “do its racist work” and “chose to defer to the government’s wishes against the integrity and autonomy of the university”. Hendricks went on further to state, without evidence, that the Affair was underpinned by further “collusion” (conspiracy?) “in the workings of apartheid” fostered by “behind-the-scenes negotiations with the full knowledge of Luyt between senior members of the government regime and his Liaison Office, including Danie Fourie.

Keith Gottschalk, who – decades later – presented a seminar damning the VC-ship of JP Duminy, suggests that Fourie was an informer for the Security Branch of the police. Hendricks further suggested that Luyt’s instructions to protesting students indicated that he “expected them and their colleagues as student leaders to do everything possible at all times and in whatever form protest took, to ensure orderliness and respect for law” constituted a threat of punitive action. Yet, when a student referred to as “Mr Blaylock” attempted to illegally enter Bremner Building; hurled rocks through the glass doors of Bremner Building; gathered eight milk bottles which he threw each in turn through the damaged glass doors, Luyt stated:

“My initial impressions in regard to the case of Mr Blaylock are that if action is to be taken against him, action would also need to be taken in regard to the damage to the fabric of the Bremner building by those who were ‘sitting-in’. This damage may not have been caused with a similar degree of intent, but many students must have been aware over a long period that the ‘sit-in’ was causing damage to carpets, furniture, paint etc. I do not think that further disciplinary action for any ‘sit-in’ events would now be in the best interests of the University.”

So much for Luyt’s punitive action.

Luyt’s successor, Prof. Stuart Saunders, confirms that Danie Fourie was merely a police reservist who helped, nor harmed, PoC members of UCT’s community. Saunders described Luyt as an “outstanding” VC who:

  1. “[re]gained the respect and confidence of members of the students’ representative council and of the entire student body”;
  2. was “forthright in his condemnation of the polices of the South African Government”; and
  3. “gave invaluable support to the student body and the institution as a whole when the Government seem determined to subdue a university that had long roused its suspicions of harbouring liberal-leftists and the like.”

Mafeje completed a PhD at Cambridge, clashing with his ‘matronizing’ supervisor: “I was not going to allow myself to be [academically] ‘adopted’ by anybody.” He went on to become a renowned scholar who combined academic pursuits with political commitment to the struggle for social change and justice within the African continent. He held professorships at universities in Europe, America and Africa.

Post-Mafeje

Other than his role in the ‘Mafeje Affair’, Luyt contrasted markedly with his predecessor. He was at the forefront of South African vice-chancellors fighting against the Apartheid Regime to protect academic freedom and eradicate raced-based discrimination. To that end, he transformed Senate, giving it direction and purpose. He declared UCT as “private property” in an attempt to keep apartheid security forces off campus. He strongly supported the elimination of salary differences between ‘white’, ‘coloured’, Indian’ and ‘African’ doctors at Medical School. He also (assisted by Stuart Saunders) promoted strategies that circumvented government-exclusion of PoC students from UCT. He “cared about students” and “engaged” with them via an “open-door policy”, opening his home to shelter end-of-conscription campaign protesters. In an effort to attract non-governmental funding for UCT, he collaborated extensively with Chancellor Harry Oppenheimer, e.g. to resuscitate the School of African Studies. Indeed, Luyt made a special effort to attend African Studies seminars. But, like his predecessors, he advocated “academic non-segregation”, not complete political and social equality and integration.

With regards to de-racializing the Arts, Luyt was, with Donald Inskip, a ‘mid-wife’ (assisted by ‘Apartheid spy’ Danie Fourie) at the birth of the non-racial Baxter Theatre Centre, resulting from a donation Dr W. Duncan Baxter, a former mayor of Cape Town and long-serving chairman of the UCT Council. Internationally, Luyt established strong ties with leaders in liberated Africa, e.g. Haile Selassie, Daniel arap Moi and Kenneth Kaunda. With regard to policies relating to student admissions and teaching, according to Lungisile Ntsebeza, Luyt favoured emulating top Western European universities in “accepting only the best of the best”, allowing the relatively “not gifted” to ‘swim or sink’. This policy, plus maintaining relatively high fees, prevented overwhelming academic staff with teaching duties and “maintained high standards” for post-graduate education and research.

However, Ntsebeza maintains that this strategy showed Luyt’s poor appreciation of the realities of Bantu Education and “black lived experiences” which effectively “guaranteed failure” of many ‘black’ students. Open, student-sourced criticism of UCT (but not of Luyt personally) was not confined to PoC. Prominent amongst ‘white’ students was leftist SRC President and NUSAS leader Geoff Budlender. Budlender’s home was burned under suspicious circumstances and, for her own ‘transgressions’, his sister and fellow UCT student Debbie was banned. In 1979, Budlender retrospectively challenged UCT’s ‘elitism’, saying that “high technology white-oriented education … will have [to] become at least partly obsolete”. His vision by that time was that UCT thirty years down the line (2009) would produce “graduates equipped to deal with the problems of changing society”, “moving the university into the community, and bringing the community into the university”. This would generate a “need to direct some resources and energies from producing engineers, doctors and lawyers to producing technicians, medical engineers, and community law workers”. In short, the future UCT would focus on “the differential distribution of privileges, power and wealth”. As is outlined in my ‘mirrors’ piece on VC Max Price, Budlender delivered on this vision in 2008.

Other than the Budlenders, noteworthy graduates during the Luyt Era are: Nick Mallett (player and coach for/of the Springboks), Jonathan Shapiro (political cartoonist “Zapiro”) and trade union activist Neil Aggettwho died suspiciously while under detention without trial.

Regardless of his alleged failings, Luyt’s VC-ship was arguably a strongly defensive holding action. He passed on a much more functional, stable, non-racial, academically free and excellent UCT to his successor. To continue this trajectory, he appointed the ‘Old-Boy- wise’, unabashed ‘transformer’, Stuart Saunders [next piece], as his Deputy Principal for Planning. Words invariably associated with Luyt the man and VC are: dignity, tact, firmness, fairness and tolerance.

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