Response from UCT to article by James Myburgh
Mr Myburgh's article "Racial quotas at UCT", Politicsweb, 12 May 2011, refers.
Mr Myburgh implies that the University of Cape Town's values have changed since 1994 because we now ask (not require) students to identify themselves under racial classifications. He further insinuates that we have adopted an "ANC driven African nationalist" and racist agenda instead of speaking out against it and that this represents a profound intellectual failure on the part of the University.
Mr Myburgh is guilty of simplifying the issue of the use of racial categories to such an extent that it results in erroneous logic. UCT's values have not changed. It is precisely because of our values and belief in equality of all that we feel committed to the admissions policy we have.
It is because we acknowledge the damage history has done to the majority of people in our country that we are attempting to address those inequalities that still persist today. It is because of our understanding that the "bantu education" of the apartheid era is still not eradicated - nor are its consequences - that we are attempting to do something, no matter how hard or imperfect it might be.
It is because of our values that we acknowledge that it would be utterly unfair to insist that all students (despite the terrible inequality of their educational background) should compete on symbols alone. It is because we believe in the positive essence of cultural diversity that we attempt to ensure it in our classrooms.