Spike in racism at tertiary institutions

MORE than 500 racism-related cases have been reported to the SA Human Rights Commission in the past year.

“These cases were not only in universities,” Lawrence Mushwana, chairman of the commission’s hearings into transformation at universities, said in Joburg yesterday.

In the 2013/2014 financial year, 45 percent of the commission’s complaints were racerelated and dealt with the right to equality.

Panel commissioner Lindiwe Mokate said black students were targeted in most of the cases.

“There had been an increase in the ‘k-word’ where there is not sufficient respect for each other among students.”

She said there had been a spike in racism at higher learning institutions. Mushwana said, despite previous committees looking into racism, such cases continued.

In the most recent case a black student was assaulted at the University of the Free State, allegedly by two white students. The matter is in court.

The commission had also been asked to investigate a complaint about the drowning of first-year student Thabang Mokhoang in a campus pool during an “orientation programme” at the North West University in January 2012.

Several cleaners were humiliated in a mock initiation ceremony at the University of the Free State by four residents of the Reitz men’s hostel in 2008. – Sapa