Philippa Garson
THE debacle around Wits University’s “great black hope”, deputy vice-chancellor William Makgoba, represents a crisis on several fronts for the institution, including a battle for the top job.
Clearly, a concerted attempt to discredit the man tipped to be the university’s next vice-chancellor by a group of senior academics, who presented current vice- chancellor Robert Chartlon with a dossier questioning Makgoba’s academic credibility (by querying the validity of aspects of his curriculum vitae) and his commitment to the university last weekend, suggests a damaging leadership struggle in the university’s top echelons of divisive proportions.
Furthermore, if the attempt to unseat Makgoba — who has so far rejected the allegations as “false and without foundation” — is successful, the university, already lagging behind some other historically white universities in its attempts to transform itself from an elitist white establishment into a more equitable and representative one, will have suffered a serious setback.
Already, the furore has damaged fragile race relations on campus. Makgoba, who is known for his outspoken, hot-headed criticism of the university’s “white liberal trappings”, has significant support among black members of staff and the black student body.
The Wits Black Staff Forum issued a statement this week slamming the “vendetta” against Makgoba, demanding that the curricula vitae of other senior academics be up for the same public scrutiny, and that the identities of those academics, said to include some deans, who compiled and put their names to the dossier be made public. Some see the move by the group of academics as an attempt to increase the chances of law academic June Sinclair for the position of vice-chancellor by those who support her.
In a statement issued by his lawyers earlier this week, Makgoba accused his detractors of trying to prevent him from “being considered for any senior position within the university” because they opposed his stance on transformation. He has refused to comment further to the press and his response to the dossier is awaited by Charlton.
The Mail & Guardian has been reliably informed that the bulk of the dossier cites press reports where Makgoba, a research medic with an impressive academic record, has criticised the university’s white liberal “ivory tower” identity. The rest of the dossier alleges that Makgoba inflated his credentials on his CV.
According to one source close to Makgoba, the allegations are “petty” and subjective against someone whose excellent academic record is indisputable, and an enormous amount of time, energy and university resources were used in the pursuit to discredit him, including contacting people around the world to get information on him and employing the Foundation for Research Development to run an international check on how often one of his articles in a prestigious British journal, Science, had been quoted.
In his CV, Makgoba said this article was one of the most quoted in the world. Although the international check disproved this, Makgoba has a letter from the journal’s editor, supporting his claim. Other allegations revolve around whether Makgoba misrepresented his teaching responsibilities at the University of Natal, where he trained, and whether he implied that he had already written an article which he had not yet written but had been requested to do so by the editorial board of a leading journal.
Makgoba, considered more a liberal than a revolutionary himself, has made enemies for perhaps unjustly lumping all white academics in the same reactionary boat, for “shooting his mouth off” and for showing a lack of administrative know-how. However, the source blames the university administration for not putting supportive structures in place to assist Makgoba, who as an outsider with the bulk of his academic experience acquired abroad is unfamiliar with the university’s bureaucratic procedures.
He also slammed Charlton’s handling of the affair as displaying “a visible lack of public support for his deputy,” by putting the ball in Makgoba’s court instead of instituting his own sub judicae inquiry into whether the allegations had any foundation.
Charlton said he would have to decide whether an official discplinary inquiry was held into the matter once he had received Makgoba’s response and he was unclear when this would happen.
He rejected allegations that he had mismanaged the affair, saying he had sought legal advice from within and outside the institution.