University of the Free State

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After having previously been open only to whites, UFS admitted its first black students in the early 1990s, as apartheid in South Africa began to end. Large majorities of students of all races supported racial integration of the housing facilities, and for several years UFS was seen as a model integration project. However, in the mid- to late-1990s, blacks began to form a larger percentage of the student body (they are 85% of the population of the Free State province) and began to be less enthusiastic about continuing traditions from the history of UFS. After a 1996 riot, the UFS student residences became de facto re-segregated. Furthermore, as classes became offered in English as well as Afrikaans, classes also became segregated as whites favoured Afrikaans-language classes and blacks favoured English-language classes.

The university faced controversy in late February 2008 following a video made by four white students of the Reitz residence which was referred to as being a protest against racial integration on the campus. The video depicted five black workers being subjected to various mock activities, including being forced to consume food which appeared to have been urinated on. The video received coverage from both South African and international media and condemnation from most major political parties in South Africa, and led to riots and racial strife among students at the university. In riots that followed the video, threats were made against white students by protesting black students.

The council of the university closed the Reitz hostel over the incident and the incident triggered a broader investigation into racism in education by the Department of Education of South Africa.

The then-new Vice-Chancellor, Jonathan Jansen – a strong proponent of intellectual freedom and the first black president of UFS – was appointed and he has subsequently initiated a process for campus-wide racial integration among students which included inviting the four students to continue with their studies at the university. Jansen was widely criticised for pardoning the students and failing to consult the workers subjected to racist humiliation before doing so. In 2010, the university was awarded the World Universities Forum Award for Best Practice in Higher Education which praised amongst other the racial integration and harmonisation of the student community. On receiving her honorary doctorate from the university, Oprah Winfrey called the transformation of the university as "nothing short of a miracle" when referring to the incident and subsequent racial integration. However, later assessments have argued that "neither the institutional problems nor the individual bad apples were dealt with" and that Jansen's approach reflected a tendency to diminish the harms of apartheid.

In April 2015, the University of the Free State, under leadership of UFS Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof. Jonathan Jansen, led a three-day discussion session about the role and place of statues, symbols, and signs at the university which initiated the process to remove the statues of C. R. Swart and Martinus Theunis Steyn. In 2016, following protests during the FeesMustFall movement; the statue of C. R. Swart was vandalized by Economic Freedom Fighters protesters. C. R. Swart served as the Governor General of South Africa from 1960 to 1961 where after he became the president of the Republic of South Africa from 1961 until 1967. Being a symbol of importance to the Afrikaners, the statue was removed from campus by the Voortrekkers movement on 19 December 2016 where after it was restored and relocated to the Sarel Cilliers heritage site.

In 2018, the university targeted the statue of President MT Steyn, the last Boer president of the Orange Free State, as a priority to be dealt with according to its Integrated Transformation Plan (ITP). In November, the Rector and Vice-Chancellor, Prof Francis Petersen, stated that a large portion of the student body felt unwelcome near the statue and that a “Special Task Team” found that there could be no historical reinterpretation of the statue and that it should therefore be relocated.

University of the Free State

University of the Free State

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About University of the Free State

About University of the Free State

Article

History

Related journals

Live room · 1 here

Related journals

Article

History

Language policy

Campuses

Academic divisions

Notable alumni

Notable staff

Ranking

Partnerships

Controversies