Stellenbosch University

Two eminent law scholars explain why they believe the SA Human Rights Commission report on Stellenbosch University's language policy is flawed.

Geo Quinot is a professor of law in the Department of Public Law and School of Public Leadership at Stellenbosch University. It is noteworthy that the SAHRC is completely silent on this journey and its importance as underscored in the Khampepe report. Third, the finding that the events described above indicated that the university had a policy to ban the speaking of Afrikaans is based on flawed logic and reasoning. The logic seems to be that the Language Policy simultaneously did not allow these practices and resulted in the practices. The real risk, however, is that it may undermine important, ongoing processes of transformation at SU (and other higher education institutions) as the institution continues its journey from discrimination and exclusion to equality and inclusion in service of all South Africans. The same narrow and skewed focus is evident in the commission’s finding that the incidents during the 2021 welcoming week at the residences in question had a disproportionate impact on Afrikaans-speaking students because they constituted the vast majority of non-English-speaking students at SU. Based on this flawed logic, the report concludes that SU violated students’ human rights since what happened in these residences amounted to “a policy … In our view, Prof De Villiers is spot-on when he stated (as also quoted in the report) that the complainants “pay no regard to the facts and are apparently oblivious to the complexities associated with implementing multilingualism at a large higher education institution.” Sadly, it seems that the commission fell into this same trap. Surely, the same type of reasoning could be applied, and with even more force, in relation to “many rural and underprivileged people, particularly in the black and coloured communities” that speak a language other than Afrikaans? If SU is to open its doors to the more underprivileged in our society, and in particular the underprivileged youth, it must be borne in mind that, for many underprivileged and rural youths, these doors can only remain truly open if Afrikaans remains not only a reasonably practicable language of academic learning, but also a respected language of communication in other contexts within university life.” The commission fails to record or to assess all the evidence presented to it on the ground that “doing so may lead to unnecessary disputes of fact and draw out the process without cause”. This finding was based on certain incidents that occurred during the opening weeks of the 2021 academic year in a handful of university residences.