The council of the University of the Free State (UFS), which after eleven years of democracy still practises segregation in its student hostels, said the name change of a hostel for white men, named ”Verwoerd”, is a priority and will be finalised in June.
The Mail & Guardian on February 17 reported that the university’s student hostels were still racially segregated and a university official acknowledged at the time that the current management of the UFS has identified the residence placement policy as an issue that needed to be ”urgently reviewed”.
Anton Fisher, the university’s director of strategic communication said in February: ”The current management shares the view that this name [Verwoerd] is deeply offensive and needs to be changed … the process to do this has already started.” Fisher said a ”transformation-plan task team”, led by two vice-rectors, would table a ”transformation road map” for the university within the next few months.
A third-year accounting student, who asked to remain anonymous, told the Mail & Guardian Online in February that the university still has hostels occupied only by certain race groups.
The student said the racial segregation in the hostels ”is a shock” to a lot of new students who come to the university for the first time. ”I don’t think the rest of the country would approve.”
Fisher, in a document sent to the Mail & Guardian Online in April said that the UFS council approved the name change of Verwoerd in March.
”During this meeting of the UFS council it was also agreed that the new name should be the product of an inclusive process of consultation, including the current students of the residence.
”Indeed, there has already been many consultation sessions since February with these students and other groups, leading to their agreement to the name change, and a process to propose new names,” said Fisher.
An announcement regarding a new name will be made once this process has produced an outcome, he said.
However a third-year law student, who asked to remain anonymous, denied any consultation with the students had taken place about the residence name change since February. ”Nothing has changed.”
Fisher said in the document that the matter of the name change ”is being dealt with separately by management and is not part of the brief of the transformation task team, which is dealing with transformation issues in a more comprehensive manner”.
He added that the transformation task team has been working intensively and is confident that it can table a first draft report during this term.
Student representative council chairperson Graeme Bradley in February denied the residences were segregated, saying people of ”different cultures” were accommodated in certain hostels. However, he mentioned that the university had been discussing issues surrounding the racial segregation in hostels from as early as 2002 and insisted that the issue is being addressed.
Various universities spoke about their residence placement policies in February.
The University of Stellenbosch said they have a policy of placing students from different races in the same residence.
Mohamed Shaikh, Stellenbosch University’s communication manager, said: ”We do not place students of one race in any particular residence. That would run contrary to the university’s endeavour to be an active role player in the creation of a South Africa that is free of racism and the legacy of apartheid.”
However, he did not want to comment on the placement practices of any other university still using race as a basis for allocating accommodation at the time.
Rhodes University in Grahamstown also doesn’t discriminate against race in allocating a residence to students. Their policy is based on preference and race demographics.
Natasha Joseph, communications coordinator from Rhodes said: ”We do make sure that our residences are mixed [racially]”.
Dr Derek Swemmer, the registrar of the University of the Witwatersrand said: ”It is hard to believe that given the current commitment of our nation to fundamental rights and democratic principles that any institution populates a residence on the basis of racial classification.”
For more than 20 years, Wits has had no racial criteria when determining the offer of a place in residence, said Swemmer.
”There is a points rating system …. that determines who will receive first offers. This points rating system ignores issues pertaining to race, religion, creed or colour,” he said.
Siphumelele Zondi, a former student and resident from the Durban University of Technology, said in February the students staying in the hostels were ”predominantly black”. But the university didn’t allocate hostels to students based on the colour of their skin, he said.