RHODES UNIVERSITY EXPELS TWO STUDENT ACTIVISTS FOR LIFE OVER #RUREFERENCE LIST PROTESTS IN APRIL 2016.
The Socio-Economic Rights Institute (SERI) acts for Yolanda Dyantyi in a number of matters concerning her participation in anti-rape protests on the Rhodes University campus during April 2016. Our client has instructed us to issue this statement to the media in response to the recent online campaign #RhodesWar.
Between 17 and 20 April 2016, a large number of Rhodes students participated in a campus-based protest against what they saw as an entrenched culture of rape and sexual violence against women. The protestors believed that the University’s management and administration had enabled a culture in which rape and sexual violence against women were both permitted and condoned. The protestors also believed that the University enabled this culture by permitting a number of practices which promoted gender-based violence.
One example of this culture was the fact that University’s own website described first year women students as “seals” that are ripe for “clubbing” (a euphemism for older male students aggressively pursuing sexual contact with younger women). The University also promoted “serenades” in which male students randomly select young women to take back to their dormitory rooms, in circumstances where there is no doubt that sexual contact is expected and condoned.
The protestors also felt that the sanctions imposed by the University’s disciplinary authorities for rape and gender-based violence were insufficiently severe to protect women students and to deter repetition of rape and sexual violence. The University itself has acknowledged in court papers that rape and sexual violence are “prevalent” on its campus.
Ms. Dyantyi participated in the April 2016 protests. In response to the protests, the University sued Ms. Dyantyi, two other female students, the Student Representative Council and a large number of other people it identified as those “engaging in” or “associating with” unlawful activities on its campus.
The effect of the order the University claimed was to ban any campus-based protest at all. In December 2016, relying on submissions advanced by SERI on Ms. Dyantyi’s behalf, the High Court in Grahamstown dismissed the University’s application for such an order.
The High Court did, however, grant a narrower interdict against Ms. Dyantyi and two other women students, which restrained them from kidnapping, assaulting, intimidating any person on the University campus, disrupting classes or destroying property.
Ms. Dyantyi and the two other students applied for leave to appeal against the interdict, on the basis that it had not been established that they had in fact participated in any of the activities from which they were restrained. Their application for leave to appeal was refused by the Supreme Court of Appeal, and by the Constitutional Court. The Constitutional Court did not finally decide any of the issues of fact raised by Ms. Dyantyi. It merely noted that it could not interfere with the findings of fact made by the High Court.
Ms. Dyantyi maintains that those findings of fact are erroneous. The fact that the Constitutional Court has declined to interfere with them does not amount to an endorsement of them, but reflects the Court’s long-established position that it will not, generally, resolve disputes of fact raised in lower courts. The Court did, though, set aside costs orders made against Ms. Dyantyi on the basis that she was litigating in good faith to vindicate her constitutional rights.
In March 2017, eleven months after the April 2016 protests concluded, the University instituted disciplinary proceedings against Ms. Dyantyi. When the time came for the disciplinary inquiry to hear Ms. Dyantyi’s evidence, the Chairperson of the proceedings postponed the inquiry to a date on which he knew none of Ms. Dyantyi’s legal representatives could attend the inquiry, because they had competing commitments in court. SERI made every effort to persuade the Chairperson to continue the proceedings on a date that Ms. Dyantyi could give evidence with the assistance of her legal representatives.
The Chairperson refused to accede to SERI’s request that the date of the inquiry be changed. In the event, Ms. Dyantyi did not attend the inquiry because she could not do so with the assistance of her representatives. SERI has advised Ms. Dyantyi that the failure to hold the inquiry on a date that Ms. Dyantyi’s legal representatives were able to appear constitutes an irregularity in the proceedings, rendering them fatally unfair and unlawful.
Ms. Dyantyi was convicted in her absence, and permanently excluded from the University. All of her most recent examinations were invalidated. Her transcript was endorsed with the words “Unsatisfactory Conduct: Student found guilty of assault, kidnapping, insubordination and defamation”.
As far as SERI has been able to ascertain, this is the harshest penalty the University has imposed for ten years for any offence whatsoever, including rape and sexual violence on campus. The endorsement on Ms. Dyantyi’s transcript is unusual. Ordinarily, a student’s transcript does not record disciplinary offences of which she has been convicted. In setting out the offences of which Ms. Dyantyi has been found guilty, the transcript will effectively prevent Ms. Dyantyi from registering elsewhere. SERI has advised Ms. Dyantyi that this sanction is wholly unreasonable and unlawful.
Ms. Dyantyi has attempted to launch an internal review of the proceedings and sanction to the University’s internal review committee. The University refused to accept that review application, because, so it claimed, the review application was launched too late. SERI has advised Ms. Dyantyi that the review application was in fact launched on time in terms of the rules, and that the University’s refusal to accept the review is unlawful. We have furthermore advised Ms. Dyantyi that, in any event, the University’s failure to exercise its discretion to entertain the review, even if submitted late, is likewise unreasonable and unlawful in the circumstances.
SERI has been instructed to launch an application to the High Court to review and set aside the disciplinary proceedings brought against Ms. Dyantyi. SERI believes that the University’s treatment of Ms. Dyantyi has been disproportionate, unfair and unlawful.
Statement issued by Nomzamo Zondo, SERI director of litigation, 12 December 2017
