One feature of life at South African universities now is the sense that anything might happen. Take the University of Cape Town, where I work. Recent months have brought – to mention several events – the blockade and closure of the campus for weeks, occupations of administrative offices, exam postponement and disruption, stoning and setting alight of university shuttle-buses, pouring of sewage onto the floors of academic buildings, public burning of portraits and photographs ransacked from residences and the main hall, and fire-bombing of the Vice-Chancellor’s office.

Some may welcome this degree of instability, or at least regard it as an appropriate cost to pay for the prospect of bringing radical change to tertiary institutions. In this article, however, I am addressing those who do not take this view; who think that an extended and indefinite period of chaos brings great and profound harm to a university and to those who depend on its functioning, and who seek to allow for change – even if it might be extensive – by means of more orderly processes.

Of course there are many sources of disarray, and various ways to deal with them. I will consider only one of the factors that leads to turmoil: a university’s lack of regard for its own structures and procedures. When an institution does not act in accordance with its policies, whether in its internal deliberations or in dealing with unofficial bodies, then the gap between official rules and actual behaviour tends to increase confusion and reduce institutional morale. Here again I have in mind an example from the University of Cape Town.

Since last year UCT has engaged frequently, at length, and at many levels of administrative seniority up to the Vice-Chancellor, with the organisation Rhodes Must Fall. RMF takes its mandate to include fees, curriculum, student housing – indeed, the list of issues seems indefinitely large, including whatever might lie under such capacious umbrellas as ‘liberation’ and ‘decolonisation’.

Now this is odd. UCT already has staff, student and representative bodies meant to deal with such issues. The salient student organisations include the Student Representative Council and the Faculty Student Councils (see here). So shouldn’t UCT be explicitly spending most of its energies devoted to student groups in consulting with those bodies?

There are many benefits of attending primarily to student organisations that have formal status at the institution. One is that the official bodies have a democratic mandate: their members are elected by students. A second is that their powers are, to some extent, laid down; they cannot expand indefinitely to megalomaniac proportions. A third is that they are accountable: we know who their members are, and they are held responsible for their performance.

By contrast, RMF does not hold formal democratic legitimacy, does not accept any bounds on its powers, and avoids individual accountability through anonymity. (The organisation frequently attacks people by name, but the attackers usually identify themselves only as RMF.)

There may well be times when it is valuable or at least unavoidable to deal at length with unofficial pressure groups. During the Fees Must Fall demonstrations last year, it might have been appropriate for UCT’s administration to engage in protracted negotiations with these organisations, perhaps because of the apparently substantial support they enjoyed or simply because the university had to reach some accord  with them in order to function.

But it is dangerous for politics conducted outside formally mandated channels to become the normal state of affairs. As the months go on, the university should make continual and explicit commitments to dealing primarily with its official discussion and negotiation partners, and to treating other groups as secondary in the attention they receive.

Unofficial groups might reply that formal student organisations are too constrained and lack adequate power. Even if this questionable claim were true, it would not be a good reason to downplay official channels, but rather to reconsider the mandate and procedures of student bodies.

These are deep waters – whether basic rules and powers are currently adequate or require revision will be contentious – but surely such a review would be more fruitful than continuing to negotiate so extensively with an unaccountable organisation. The administration should also ensure that it treats official bodies with all due commitment, and heeds their views more than it does those of external groups.

External organisations might allege that quite apart from formal powers, the individuals in the faculty and university student organisations are not up to the job. In response: these people were elected by the student body, and the anonymous RMFers were not.

Members of student councils stood as representatives and were chosen; any other representatives are self-styled. If an initial election is not thought to be an adequate mandate, and if (for instance) it would be appropriate to require regular referenda or votes of confidence from students, then the right response is surely to revisit the current system.

Another objection from unofficial organisations might be that their cause is not supported by a majority of students, and would therefore gain no traction in a formal system. This may indeed be a challenge, but it is not a novel one; the problem of giving due weight to a minority viewpoint democratically is well-recognised. If current procedures do not do so adequately, then again this calls for a systemic rethink.

Finally, unelected organisations might regard themselves not merely as student bodies, but as representatives of students, workers and staff at UCT. But if these bodies do not currently enjoy adequate opportunities to interact and put forward views jointly, then that too is a reason to reconsider current procedures.

All these remarks, someone may say, miss the point: RMF and other unofficial organisations do not wish to work within the system. Rather, they want the freedom and independence that come from operating outside official channels, untainted by formal collaboration with university authorities and unconstrained by stipulated processes.

If so, fine – but then UCT should make it continually clear that formally legitimate bodies will receive more attention and be able to do more than external pressure groups. There is no need for the university to let unofficial organisations have their cake and eat it. They should not be regarded as crucial negotiation partners while engaging at their pleasure and in the ways they wish (for a taste of the challenges of communicating with RMF, see this exchange of messages). Nor should they be respected as representatives while acting in ways that intimidate a significant proportion of the university community.

UCT has taken a tougher line against RMF lately, given the organisation’s recent invective and destructiveness. For the university to supplement this with an explicit commitment to acting in line with its own policies and procedures would be a fine thing. This is certainly not to say that turbulence will cease if the SRC attains primacy – there will surely be many conflicts between the SRC and the administration – but rather that at least the university will be dealing with a formally legitimate, accountable body that has a specific mandate.

Of course, recent chaos at South African universities has a number of causes, some of which are outside institutional control. But if we wish campuses to become more stable, we can at least try to uphold the rule of law. Procedures should be respected or – if appropriate – updated after deliberation. When university policies are tacitly downplayed over a long period, then administrative actions no longer seem like prudent actions for an unstable time. Rather, they contribute to the deeply unsettling sense that we are winging it.