Is freedom of association being shut down at our universities?

Fellow Democrats,

This month there are a number of SRC elections taking place at universities across South Africa. Although these are usually fairly quiet, internal affairs, they have been placed firmly in the public spotlight this year, largely due to the violence at the University of the Freestate resulting from the refusal by the university to allow candidates to contest along party political lines.

Via our DA Student Organisation (DASO) branches on campuses across South Africa, we have identified a growing trend by university management to clampdown on open political activity at tertiary institutions. This trend is driven by a number of smaller incidents that are hard to link to any kind of official directive by management to limit political activity, but when strung together, point to a growing culture of ‘hostility’ towards politically aligned student organisations.

The incidents experienced by these organisations, DASO included, range from the banning of political contestation of SRC’s, to the disciplining of students for distributing political material and the persistent blocking of political leaders as guest speakers.

When university management is approached with a request to conduct political activity, they immediately raise their hackles and more often than not reference rules and regulations that are made so limiting as to render any real political activity redundant.

The root cause of this attitude is, we suspect, the fact that for years SASCO has terrorized campuses across the country and has become infamous for trashing university property.

This however leads us to question whether one can subvert a principle in response to the threat of violence. We assert a resounding ‘NO’. Where students act illegally, they must be punished. You cannot tar everyone with the same brush. The majority of student organisations are interested in nothing more than politics itself and the interests of the students they represent. Students also have a responsibility to act in a dignified manner and carry themselves like real leaders of tomorrow. That is something that should be encouraged, not controlled and constrained.

Just to be clear, not every university is guilty of this, although the number seems to be increasing. It is important that student politics be relative to the other pursuits any university is primarily tasked with, they are first and foremost academic institutions, but we believe many have gone too far. Interestingly, at institutions where there is open and vibrant political competiton, such as as at the University of Cape Town, students are far more enagged with student governance, and turn out figures for SRC elections are far higher than at those institutions where there is a single dominant group or no competition at all.

During Apartheid South African universities were at the heart of the resistance movement, and rightly so. Tertiary institutions should encourage and facilitate critical engagement by students, and indeed society as a whole, with the politics of the day. Universities have a vital role to play in producing tomorrow’s leaders of civil society, business, academia and politics. By encouraging active politics on campuses, universities are growing informed and engaged leaders who may go on to fill the current leadership vacuum we are experiencing in South Africa. Shielding students from the realities of political life in our country will not do our fledgling democracy any favours.

Actively preventing students from engaging in political activity also contravenes the right to freedom of association – one of the central tenets of our constitution.

In order to generate a constructive dialogue about our concerns, the DA Youth has been writing to the Vice-Chancellors of a number of universities to ascertain exactly what their position is with respect to politics on their campus. Some have responded favorably and have committed themselves to protecting the rights of students to hold political activity; others have reverted to hiding behind their lengthy rules and regulations.

The DA Youth will, however, continue to drive this issue in the public discourse lest politics be shut out completely from the institutions that are supposed to be the drivers of free and critical thought in South Africa.

Regards,

Makashule Gana
DA Youth Federal Leader