A third staff member at the University of the Witwatersrand has been fired for sexual harassment.
The institution fired a drama lecturer and a media studies lecturer in July for the same offence, and announced on Thursday that it had fired a third staff member. A fourth member of staff is facing an investigation into the same charge.
"The university has adopted a zero-tolerance policy towards sexual harassment. We hope the swift action taken by the university in these three cases sets a clear example that sexual harassment will not be tolerated in any form on our campuses," said Adam Habib, the University of the Witwatersrand's vice-chancellor, on Thursday.
Following media reports over several allegations of lecturers sexually harassing students, Wits instituted the investigations into the individuals as well as an inquiry into campus-wide sexual harassment.
The report, which was released on Wednesday, found that students and staff did not know exactly what sexual harassment is; that there was an ad hoc approach to it on campus; and that complaints were not taken seriously by the university.
Director of the university's Centre for Applied Legal Studies and a member of the inquiry team Bonita Meyersfeld said: "Nobody actually knows what they are talking about when they talk about sexual harassment … there are disparate processes [in dealing with complaints] … and staff and students felt that their complaints were not handled properly”.