Lies linger longer in UCT's senior appointment
17 February 2020
The University of Cape Town’s Association of Black Alumni (UCTABA) is gravely concerned about the continued fracas about the dubious appointment of Lis Lange in the senior position of Deputy Vice-Chancellor (DVC) responsible for Teaching and Learning.
This has popularly been known as the Ramugondo Affair because all facts and figures rightfully point to Professor ElelwaniRamugondo as the fitting candidate for the post. The matter was exhausted by internal processes and it was clear vested interests of Max Price, Vice Chancellor at the time would not lead to an amicable outcome and the last resort was to take the matter to court by Professor Ramugondo and the UCT Black Academic Caucus. On Tuesday the 11th of February 2020, after several months of waiting for the court judgement, Judge Nathan Erasmus dismissed the case within 5 minutes of the court session.
UCTABA is equally concerned about the judgement itself for several reasons. The judgement took unnecessarily long for its quality or truly with respect, lack thereof. For whatever reason(s), we strongly feel that this case has simply not been a priority for Judge Erasmus. The case took much longer than the prescribed regular time of 3 months. Even with the grace period of an additional 3 months making it 6 months, the good Judge Erasmus still took an extra 5 months making the total waiting time 8 months.
In all the time that the Western Cape High Court has been dragging, Lis Lange has been performing her duties normally and thereby normalizing this contested appointment with every passing day.
This then becomes a case of justice delayed is justice denied for Ramugondo and the UCT BAC. The Judgement of Judge Erasmus is a copy-and-paste job. The judge’s own application to the case in terms of his legal opinion is barely a page in a long-winded judgement. There are also deficiencies pertaining to the verdict itself, which is to have the case struck off the High Court, referring it to the Labour Court.
The application was made by Professor Ramugondo as the First Applicant and the UCT Black Academic Caucus (BAC) as the Second Respondent. Referring the matter to the Labour Court ignores the fact that this case is about procedural justice and fairness and makes it seem as though it is merely a labour issue that Professor Ramugondo has with her employer. This is simply not the case, at least not in these specific terms which matter a great deal. Also, taking the matter to the Labour Court might disqualify the BAC which has been granted locus standi in the High Court judgement. It is important to remember that while the case foregrounds and affects Ramugondo materially, it is not about her.
Though the reading of the judgement correctly acknowledges that the case is about the substantive issues in the process of appointment, the judgement dismally fails to actually deal with the substantive issues on a few grounds.
The most glaring is the fact that Lis Lange misrepresented or crudely lied about her professorship. She allowed the impression to continue by omission when constantly referred to as Professor when in effect her position upon appointment at UCT was Adjunct Professor, which is an administrative and not an academic qualification as opposed to Ramugondo who had been promoted to full Professor, which is an academic, and peer-reviewed qualification.
Lange gained advantage for the post of DVC based on this and UCT Chair of Council Mr Sipho Pityana wrote to Professor Ramugondo in December 2017 to say one of the key reasons she was not appointable was because of the fact that she was not yet a full professor at the time.
Mr Pityana was wrong but his error is revealing of an impression that was created by the VC of UCT at the time Max Price, who constantly referred to Ramugondo as Associate Professor and referred to Lange as Professor, even though she was Adjunct Professor. The false impression had been created and reinforced constantly by this reference by Price whose subjectivity on the matter is grossly woeful. The silence of the current Vice Chancellor is also concerning and to this we shall return.
The Erasmus judgment, on page 9, paragraph 26 reads: “In accordance with the university’s transformation objectives, the committee agreed to prioritize black South African candidates. This was done in terms of its policies, whereby the university should seek to prioritize the appointment of black South African candidates in first instance.”
Further, still on page 9-10, paragraph 28 also reads: Fourteen (14) applications were received for the initial selection committee meeting. In a shortlisting meeting held on 9 October 2017, the selection committee graded the candidates. Five candidates were graded “A” and invited for interviews.” Ramugondo was deemed appointable by the selection committee, Ramugondo is a South African black woman. Lis Lange is a white Argentinian woman.
The decision confirmed by Council at UCT and seemingly the impression that the Judge is working under, is that Lange is a full professor and she is not, not now or when she was appointed for the position. The judgment by Erasmus is silent on the substantive matter of Lange’s qualification and the fact that this gave her singular advantage over other candidates and therefore must be disqualified.
The fact that had this been a black applicant that lied about their qualification and got a job, the entire coverage in the media and processes would have reviewed this process. We call for the same consistency. We call for Thought Leadership on the part of the UCT Council and on the part of Judge Erasmus. This is the most substantive issue of this entire case and how it constantly gets ignored is concerning.
This decision to appoint Lange over Ramugondo by UCT is a clear failure for UCT to adhere to its own policies and transformation goals. We therefore call on the new UCT Vice Chancellor, Professor Phakeng, not to remain quiet and remain idle on the matter for several ethical reasons but also because UCT, not Max Price, is the First Respondent in court.
Also, as someone who herself was ridiculed and persecuted by whites at UCT in questioning her qualifications, we would expect more from Phakeng and that there is still an opportunity for Phakeng to call for an internal review of the process and prevent the name of UCT to be dragged all the way to the highest court in the land.
We hope that Phakeng will remember who stood by her as friends and comrades during her own persecution, and as some continued to undermine her authority. The fact that Lange continues to perform her duties normally presents a few problems, it normalises her appointment which in fact is under legal contention and it also slows down any remedial process that would have been expedited if Lange was under suspension while this process is underway.
As UCTABA, we hope that the UCT Council, the Vice-Chancellor and Judge Erasmus closely consider the integral role played by Max Price in this entire process. We must remind you all of the fact thatProfessor Ramugondo and VC Dr Max Price were often at loggerheads over issues of decolonization at UCT around Rhodes Must Fall.
In 2015, Max Price appointed Ramugondo as his special advisor in the heat of the Rhodes Must Fall protests. We suspect with strong reason that Max Price’s prejudice and bias against Professor Ramugondo starts here. Max Price appointed Ramugondo as window dressing and to perhaps silence progressive forces at UCT around Rhodes Must Fall. To his dismay, Ramugondoactually advised against the reactionary positions and this led to strained relations between Price and Ramugondo.
This relationship features nowhere in the considerations of the Judge and we as UCTABA do not underestimate the power of the VC to influence the outcome of this position. For instance, the VC plays a key role in selecting members of the Selection Committee and according to a statement released earlier by the BAC, there was a re-composition of the selection committee during the process.
This led to the replacement of 4 black members by 4 white members of the selection committee, which is alarming and should have propelled Council to suspect foul play. The reality is that Price could ignore Ramugondo’s advice as advisor with no executive powers but as a DVC with executive powers, the relationship would have been different and we have reason to believe he may have actively worked to block her from advancing further because she represented a different ideological divide within the power contestations at UCT over transformation-decolonization.
This appointment of Lange sharpens the point UCTABA made in 2016 about the appointment of Woolard as the Dean in Commerce and it is this, white women disproportionately remain the biggest beneficiaries of transformation policies in terms of gender while their race and class position continues apartheid legacies.
We have stated before, that no other group other than black women must be the first priority in filling senior positions at UCT and if there are no or limited applications, further efforts to advertise must be made because there are many capable black women in this country and in this case, the black woman had applied and has knowledge of UCT with a solid track record over decades.
Professor Ramugondo’s experience at UCT since the attainment of her first degree in 1992 and her appointment as staff in 1998 means nothing to UCT’s Council and the Vice-Chancellor Max Price who has famously told us that it takes more than 20 years from getting a PhD to becoming a professor. Ramugondo has ticked all those boxes but still was discriminated against because of a
perception Price articulated privately that Ramugondo applied because she was pushed by the BAC, undermining her agency. Also, the prejudice that Price has shown towards Ramugondo shows in even undermining and attacking her legal team led by Advocate Masuku, saying that they are being paid by his arch rival, Dr Iqbal Surve even though in truth, Advocate Masuku did a lot of this work pro bono as a matter of principle.
In saying such things about Ramugondo’s legal team, Price is also at the same time ‘Guptarizing’ these genuine efforts so that they are met with suspicion from unsuspecting minds. This muddies the name of Dr Surve, Advocate Masuku and by extension, of Professor Ramugondo.
We have come to accept that fairness, rigour, transparency and transformation were never part of Price’s commitment. We hope that they are for Judge Erasmus and we encourage everyone to read the judgement from the twitter page of the UCT Black Academic Caucus or via the Cape High Court website, the case number is: 9489/18.
The other main contention that the Erasmus judgement is silent on is the change in the language used in this whole process. It moved from appointability vs unappointability to suitability vs unsuitability; and we can see this as a play on words but it is not merely that, it is also a redefinition that swings the definition towards the bias of Price and his cabal.
We also regret that Council, though on paper the highest decision making body, is sometimes tricked to rubberstamp decisions that are taken by fewer heads with vested interests. In this case, Council was provided with one name of Lange and Council had no alternative if they did not insist on reviewing the whole process as we are.
UCTABA stands by the decisions we achieved through serious toil with all the progressive forces at UCT. We insist on the appointment of Black South African women in such key senior positions. On this particular matter, we hope that beyond the Cape High Court, the public will do a better job at looking into all the dynamics at play in this process and ensure that thought leadership is to the highest degree, that fairness, rigour, transparency and the principle of transformation is upheld by the Court of South Africa as it is maintained in other sectors, public and private.
We stand by the UCT Black Academic Caucus and Professor Ramugondo to press on and we call on all those committed to justice and change to study the judgement and follow the case closely because its implications are broad, varied and all important.
Issued by Peter-Paul ka Mbele, Acting Chairperson, UCTABA WC, 17 February 2020
