On Sunday evening I published an essay entitled The Gauteng Education Department mishandles yet another “racism” debacle at Pretoria High School for Girls. I explained that twelve Matric girls had been suspended from school last week on charges of serious misconduct. Addressed to their parents, their suspension letters (which are identical in every material respect) state simply that:
“Your daughter, [NAME], was part of the WhatsApp group that allegedly expressed inappropriate opinions.”
Which WhatsApp group? What inappropriate opinions? The suspension letters do not say. As for the rules which have allegedly been broken, the letters make reference to section numbers in the school’s Learner Code of Conduct and its Social Media Policy which do not exist.
Over the past few days, parents have tried in vain to obtain basic information from the school about the upcoming disciplinary hearings. In addition to requesting the school to set out exactly what their daughters have allegedly done wrong, they have also asked for the following information:
- Full and precise details of each and every allegation / accusation that is being made by each accuser against the twelve suspended girls individually and on a collective basis.
- The name of the individual(s) who raised the complaint with the school or who is / are making the accusation.
- The name of the person who will be leading the prosecution on behalf of the school.
- The name of the chairperson of the inquiry.
- The name of each member of the disciplinary committee who will constitute the “panel” that deliberates and delivers a verdict on the matter.
- Complete and up-to-date copies of all relevant policies that the school wishes to refer to at the hearing
The parents have not been furnished with any of this information. Consequently, next week twelve girls will be expected to appear at the school to defend themselves against charges which have not been properly disclosed, in front of a disciplinary panel whose members are a mystery, all subject to provisions of school policies which do not exist.
This is completely unlawful. In terms of Regulation 5(3) of the Misconduct of Learners at Public Schools and Disciplinary Proceedings Regulations, a learner who is accused of serious misconduct is entitled by law to be provided with written notice that contains “sufficient particularity of the date, place and nature of the alleged serious misconduct to enable the learner to identify the incident in question and to respond thereto.”
On this basis alone, if the disciplinary hearings proceed next week and are then challenged in court (which, in the event of guilty verdicts, they will be), it is virtually certain that any findings will be set aside on the basis that there were serious procedural irregularities which compromised the fairness of the hearing.
“Inappropriate opinions”
Setting aside matters of procedural fairness, the key question obviously concerns the conversation which occurred in the relevant WhatsApp group. Did the girls say or do anything that deserves disciplinary action?
Over the past week, I have assisted a number of the parents whose girls are implicated in this matter and have reviewed screenshots of the conversation. Today, with their permission and endorsement, I am publishing a summary of what was said in the WhatsApp group in order to demonstrate that the allegations of racism are completely unfounded.
It is worth noting, to begin with, that of the 1 400 pupils at the school today less than 15% are white. The group text conversation (which occurred nearly a year ago) concerns an in-person altercation between a white girl and a black girl about school clothing rules. The black girl had confronted the white girl and told her that she felt that the school’s hair and uniform rules don’t seem to apply to white girls to the same extent that they apply to black girls.
The white girl mentioned to her friends in the WhatsApp group that she had been very upset by this remark which she felt was unjustified. The white girl said that “[she] had never been so uncomfortable in [her] life” and that she had “wanted to cry”.
In her opinion, the rules at Pretoria High School for Girls were applied equally to everyone. Furthermore, if anyone should be upset by double standards it was the white girls. After all, racial discrimination is explicitly applied in numerous contexts in South Africa including provincial sports team selection and university admissions – and certainly not to the benefit of white people.
Many of the girls in the WhatsApp group then expressed frustration at the constant race-baiting that they experience at school. A number of girls expressed their belief that the school would be a far happier place if every issue were not racialised and politicised. The conversation eventually moved on to the usual teenage preoccupations, with the girls discussing what time their next exam would end.
That, in essence, is the conversation which has resulted in twelve girls being suspended from school and called to attend disciplinary hearings for serious misconduct just weeks before their Matric prelim exams.
In short, the suspended girls have absolutely nothing to hide or to be ashamed about. The statements which they made in the WhatsApp chat – about white people facing explicit racial discrimination when being selected for provincial sports teams or applying to university – are not racist. These comments simply reflect the factual reality of life in South Africa under ANC rule.
I need to emphasise that at no point was language used in the WhatsApp group which was even remotely racist or offensive. The girls simply expressed their opinion that the school enforced rules fairly and equally, and that they were demoralised by the toxic classroom and societal environment to which they are subjected on a daily basis.
Most shockingly of all, many of the girls who are facing disciplinary hearings made absolutely no contribution to the conversation whatsoever. They just happened to be members of the WhatsApp group where this conversation occurred.
How this WhatsApp conversation ended up in the hands of the authorities is not clear. It appears that someone started an anonymous Instagram account last week where it was leaked. Gauteng Education Department officials appeared on the scene very quickly – some might say suspiciously quickly – and insisted on the matter being escalated. Whatever the case, according to the girls’ shoddy letters of suspension, the views expressed in the WhatsApp group are regarded by the school to be “inappropriate opinions” which were likely to “cause the spread of hate.”
Not only has the matter been completely blown out of proportion, but the levels of pettiness and unprofessionalism that have been exhibited by the Gauteng Education Department are extreme. Several of the twelve suspended girls are school prefects. Shortly after they were suspended, their parents were contacted by Mrs de Bruin, one of the school’s Deputy Principals, who asked them to drive to the school and surrender their girls’ prefect badges. Mrs de Bruin was apologetic in making this request, explaining that she was simply implementing an instruction which she had received from the Gauteng Education Department. To the credit of the parents, they all refused to do so.
This petty degradation followed the appalling public humiliation which occurred last Friday morning when an official from the Gauteng Education Department named Mr Kgomo addressed students during the school’s assembly. Mr Kgomo asked the assembled students whether the accused girls should be suspended and expelled from the school. Of course, the students cheered in loud approval.
“Make the white girls bow down to me and feel the wrath”
That this scandal has erupted just a few weeks before critical mid-year Matric exams might shock an outside observer, but it comes as little surprise to those who are more closely acquainted with South African schools in general – and Pretoria High School for Girls in particular. On Monday evening, I posted a tweet requesting parents and teachers who are aware of bullying and harassment at the school to contact me confidentially and share their story.
I was inundated with inbound communication. The most shocking input I received was a 37 second video of a Matric student at Pretoria High School for Girls stating quite explicitly that she and her friends intended to target white girls at some point in the year.
The text of the recording reads as follows:
“Good morning guys this is the 22nd of February… February… is it 20…
Yes guys! Why hasn’t anyone… Guys I have not even asked even a single white person to like bow down!
[Giggling]
I haven’t!
[Another student]: Flip, we have just forgotten…
Guys we just let them off the hook this year. I think this is just because we are in Matric and there is no time. We are feeling sorry for them so… we are going to let it go. But come April, on Freedom Day! On Freedom Day! They will feel the wrath.
So ja…”
Multiple sources have confirmed to me that the girl who posted this video is in fact the very same black girl who triggered the initial altercation in October last year which had upset the white girl who had then discussed the matter with her friends in their WhatsApp group.
Earlier this week, I emailed Mrs Erasmus, the principal of Pretoria High School for Girls, and asked her whether the girl in the video clip was in any way related to the current controversy. I also asked whether the school intended taking any disciplinary action against the child. I received no response to my email.
Whatever the case, the video is clear, incontrovertible evidence that some Matric students have been actively looking for an opportunity to launch an attack on white girls since as far back as February this year.
Equally disturbing has been the behaviour of students since this scandal broke in the middle of last week. According to an article which appeared in News24, a number of black students spent Mandela Day (Thursday 18 July) marching around the school with raised fists in protest against “racism” at the school. The article claims that they chanted “We want change!”
This is a rather charitable and diplomatic way of describing what really happened. I have been provided with a 30-second video clip which shows a group of about 40 girls screaming at the school’s principal, Mrs Erasmus. According to one eyewitness, a male official from the Gauteng Education Department had to physically intervene to protect Mrs Erasmus from the students whilst she walked across the school grounds.
It is abundantly clear that order, teacher authority and student discipline have effectively collapsed at Pretoria High School for Girls in the aftermath of the twelve white girls being suspended on charges of alleged racism. If this is how the principal is being treated, can you imagine what it must be like to be a regular white teacher trying to manage a class at the school? Even worse, can you imagine what it must be like being a white girl at the school?
One source told me that any white student is effectively now a target for “anti-racism” activism – not just those who are implicated in the current controversy. White girls are regularly shunned in class or subjected to provocations and bullying.
Importantly, the abuse of Mrs Erasmus came a day before Gauteng Education Department officials frog-marched her into making a grovelling apology at a school assembly. This school assembly was delayed by a full 15 minutes, with the entire student body being made to stand in silence in the school hall. According to one source, the reason for the delay was that Gauteng Education Department officials were re-writing Mrs Erasmus’ speech in her office. She was then led out to the hall and made to read the script to the school.
Whilst Gauteng Education Department officials looked on, and with tears running down her face, Mrs Erasmus apologised to the school for failing to deal effectively with the alleged “racism” incident. According to audio recordings of this event, she stated that:
“Firstly, I would like to apologise to everyone who has been affected by the recent events and how things have unfolded… This matter has affected us all and each of us in our own way. I would like to apologise if I have not dealt with things in the manner in which they should have been dealt… I sincerely apologise to each and every one of you for how you are feeling right now.”
Mrs Erasmus’ voice broke as she read out the following line:
“In this month of July, with our focus being on ‘branches of love’, I would like us to find a way to strengthen those branches and to ensure that they find a way to grow.”
Forcing someone who is in a position of authority to humiliate themselves in front of a howling mob is a standard tactic of Woke activism. Indeed, in many ways it is deeply reminiscent of what Mao Zedong’s Red Guards did during the Chinese Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, when they forced teachers and other figures of authority to stand in public squares where they were subjected to mob denunciations.
“Our school has been hijacked by the Department, they are fully in control.”
It is critically important that people understand that Mrs Erasmus is no longer in effective control of her school.
As soon as the scandal surfaced on Wednesday last week, a large delegation of officials from the Gauteng Education Department descended on Pretoria High School for Girls and have been present there ever since. These officials have set up their headquarters in the principal’s office and are directing every aspect of the school’s response to the alleged “racism” incident.
Staff have been given strict instructions to not talk to the media under any circumstances. All communication from the school is drafted and approved by Gauteng Education Department officials, including the statements which are ostensibly issued in Mrs Erasmus’ name. Parents of the accused girls have sent several rounds of letters to the school. Most of this correspondence has been ignored.
Senior staff have been warned that failure to implement instructions of departmental officials will be viewed as insubordination and that they will be subjected to disciplinary action with a view to being dismissed from their jobs. Sources from within the school have heard departmental officials yelling at Mrs Erasmus from behind the closed door of the principal’s office. Others have told me that they have seen Mrs Erasmus weeping in the corridors.
Aside from Mr Kgomo, another key Gauteng Education Department official is a man called Mr Andries Nkadimeng who is the District Director for Tshwane South. [4] A newsletter which was sent to parents on Tuesday 23 July contains the following remarkable paragraph quoting the speech which Mr Nkadimeng’s delivered to students at the school earlier that day:
“Mr Nkadimeng addressed learners, staff, and parents (in absentia)… He said the government and the Department of Education, have a zero-tolerance approach to any forms of discrimination. Issues of discrimination and issues of racism will not be tolerated by the GDE, whether there is tangible evidence or not.”
(My emphasis)
The same newsletter informs parents that the department had made its “Psychosocial Support Services team” available at the school on 24 July 2024 in case any student wished to receive counselling. There is a grim irony here, for if anyone needs counselling it is not the students who are at school but rather the twelve white girls who have been suspended and have been left at home to study for Matric prelim exams without receiving any support from their teachers, all whilst watching their reputations be destroyed by the Gauteng Education Department on national television. These girls don’t need the support of the Gauteng Education Department – they need protection from it.
Many black staff at Pretoria High School for Girls are bemused and frustrated by what is going on. Considering that this is an alleged “racism” scandal, they expected to at least have been consulted and interviewed by officials from the Gauteng Education Department, yet they have been largely ignored. Many of them feel that the racism narrative is completely misplaced and predetermined.
The Gauteng Education Department has, it seems, already started lining up Mrs Erasmus as a scapegoat. She has been accused of not responding to the racism scandal appropriately, considering that she was first notified about the WhatsApp chat in October 2023.
The media join the mob
Mr Kgomo’s public humiliation of the twelve accused girls at Friday’s school assembly was nothing compared to what the Gauteng Education Department did this week.
On Wednesday morning, the Gauteng Education Department launched a full-scale media campaign against the twelve suspended white girls. The department released a statement which was pushed to every media house in the country. In the space of less than two hours, eight virtually identical articles appeared on eNCA, EWN, IOL, News24, SowetanLIVE, The Citizen, SABC News, Johannesburg Sunday World and Jacaranda FM. 702 Radio picked up the story on its “Midday Report”. In short, every one of these news platforms fell for the Gauteng Education Department’s spin – hook, line and sinker – and simply parroted the department’s press statement.
At 10:46am, eNCA ran a story entitled “SA’s racial tensions” and announced that twelve students at Pretoria High School for Girls had been suspended. A few hours later, the Gauteng Education Department’s spokesman, Steve Mabona, appeared in the eNCA studio for an interview.
The eNCA News Anchor, whose name was not displayed on the screen, took the Gauteng Education Department’s assertions purely at face value, asking leading questions which completely ignored the fact that the disciplinary hearings had not even happened yet.
eNCA: “Just for clarity again, how many aggrieved pupils did you say there are?”
Mabona: “I don’t have the number now but there are quite a few….”
eNCA: “So that proves the point that this is obviously not an isolated incident; there is quite a few aggrieved students. One has to ask the question: why in 2024 do we still have an environment in our schools – in Gauteng that you are speaking to specifically – where there is an environment that is conducive for such incidents, such racist incidents, allegedly to occur?”
The most telling part of the Gauteng Education Department’s press release is the repeated emphasis which it places on the idea that the suspended girls have committed “microaggressions”.
The term – which is based upon the principles of Critical Race Theory – regards a long list of completely harmless interpersonal interactions as being racist. These include asking where someone is from or complimenting black children on performing well in class or promoting the ideas of colour-blindness, hard work and academic excellence.
The strategic purpose of this term is to expand the definition of racism to include virtually any conduct or speech imaginable: then, if you can prove that someone has committed a microaggression, you can claim that they are racist.
It is clear then that the Gauteng Education Department’s strategy at the forthcoming disciplinary hearings will be to allege that the suspended girls’ statements in the WhatsApp group constitute such offences.
The use of this tactic by the department is an implicit admission that their case against the girls is, in fact, extremely weak. They don’t have any real racism to go after – and so they are going to have to manufacture some ersatz racism using bogus and widely discredited concepts imported from the United States.
A call for rationality and fairness
The most important fact in all of this is that the suspended girls have been deprived of a week of class during the most critical phase of their Matric year. All the girls want to do is go back to school and prepare for their prelim exams. Yet next week they will have to attend disciplinary hearings on charges of serious misconduct. If the girls are found guilty of racism they will almost certainly be expelled, leaving their parents trying to find an alternative school for them half-way through their Matric year.
Consider simply that there are twelve girls in Pretoria who have done nothing wrong other than to hold a perfectly acceptable conversation in a WhatsApp group and who are currently sitting at home. Picture the position that their parents are in: consoling their daughters and helping them prepare for exams whilst frantically trying to find legal representation to assist them in the upcoming disciplinary hearings. Try to imagine the stress, the fear and the anxiety that they are all experiencing.
Of course, the best way forward would be for the school to reconsider its approach entirely: to withdraw the letters of suspension and to cancel the disciplinary hearings. Sadly, there is no indication that this will happen. And, judging by how the Gauteng Education Department has hijacked and degraded every process that has been undertaken so far, there is no reason to think that next week’s disciplinary hearings will be even remotely fair.
This article is an edited version of an essay which first appeared on the School Capture website. The full version, with video footage, can be read here.
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