MALAIKA MAHLATSI

Historically White universities across South Africa are losing some of their best academics to historically Black universities and universities that merged with historically Black colleges and technikons in the democratic dispensation. I first started noticing this a few years ago when my alma mater, Rhodes University, lost a radical feminist sociologist, Professor Babalwa Magoqwana, and radical feminist historian, Professor Nomalanga Mkhize, within a very short space of time. Both moved to Nelson Mandela University in Gqeberha.

Soon thereafter, the Politics and International Relations department at the same university lost the Black Consciousness radical scholar, Professor Mlamuli Hlatswayo, to the University of KwaZulu Natal. Beyond the confines of Rhodes University, many academics are leaving historically White universities. Brilliant scholars like Professor Pumla Gqola, the SARChI Chair for African Feminist Imagination, left the University of the Witwatersrand, initially for Fort Hare University and then, for Nelson Mandela University. Many young academics are doing the same thing. Examples include: radical philosopher and Harvard South Africa Fellow, Dr Siseko Khumalo, who left the University of Pretoria for Fort Hare University; Dr Pedro Mzileni, who left the University of Free State for the University of Zululand; public administration scholar, Professor John Molepo, who left North West University for the University of Mpumalanga etc. The list is long – and growing.

There are several reasons, both personal and professional, why Black academics are leaving historically White universities to teach at historically Black institutions. Some of these reasons have been expressed publicly, such as in the case of Dr Mzileni who was subjected to unimaginable humiliation at the University of the Free State, where he was accused by right-wing organisations of teaching “racism” when he explained the systematic violence of land dispossession in South Africa.

Hundreds of scholars across the world, myself included, signed a petition in support of Dr Mzileni when the university put him through a cruel disciplinary process – the second within the space of just a few months. We signed this petition because Dr Mzileni was the face of all Black academics – men, women and non-binary people who were being hurled at the margins and who had to endure racist treatment in historically White universities which, despite their demographic changes, remain resistant to structural change.

In such a space, Black academics cannot thrive because they must battle not only the coloniality of academia in general, but also, the abuse that is meted out on them in their workplaces that are supposed to offer, at the very least, support. But as we saw with Dr Mzileni, support is not something that Black academics can bank on from their employer in historically White universities. The complaints about Dr Mzileni being a “racist” came from an external right-wing organisation and rather than protecting him, his employer, the University of the Free State, chose to close ranks with fellow Whites. This is the reality for many Black academics, some whom I spoke to when I was writing my book, Corridors of Death: The Struggle to Exist in Historically White Institutions just four years ago.

As an emerging scholar and a Black woman, I am deeply conflicted about the decision by progressive Black academics to leave historically White universities. On one hand, I believe that Black academics must protect their mental health at all costs by removing themselves from spaces that demean, dehumanise, de-civilise and diminish them. They need a genuine community in spaces where their humanity is not constantly being put on trial – literally and figuratively. On the other hand, in South Africa, historically White universities are increasingly changing demographically.  

The end of the apartheid era in 1994 saw the desegregation of universities. With doors of learning now open, hundreds of thousands of Black people who were previously denied access to these institutions were able to enroll and receive an education. Thus, three decades into the democratic dispensation, the proportion of Black students is, in many of these universities, higher than that of White students. This is the case for universities like Rhodes where just a few years ago, White students constituted the majority. The situation has changed, with Black students now constituting the majority of the student body at the university. It is for this reason that I worry that with Black academics leaving, Black students are being left at the altar of Whiteness to endure unimaginable forms of violence, including both the physical violence of colonial spatiality and the epistemic violence of the erasure of Black knowledge forms in formal curricula.

I studied Geography at Rhodes University until Honours level (and years later, completed my MSc in Water Resource Science there, at the Institute for Water Research). During my time at the university, the Department of Geography had one Black lecturer, Professor Thembela Kepe. Professor Kepe wasn’t even based at Rhodes University but taught for a few months annually. He supervised my Honours research from Canada where he’s teaching at the University of Toronto. The implications of never having been taught by progressive Black academics in the Geography department is being felt now when I’m doing my PhD in Geography and having to unlearn so many regressive ideas that I learned as an undergraduate and later, Honours student.

It helps that my supervisor is Professor Sabelo Ndlovu-Gatsheni, an authority on decoloniality who is currently the Chair of Epistemologies of the Global South With Focus on Africa, at the University of Bayreuth in Germany, where I am enrolled. But the amount of unlearning that I am having to do because of the kinds of knowledges that I was exposed to in the hands of White academics who did not engage with decolonial scholarship in teaching the intersectionality of race, gender, class and geographies, is major and difficult. When subjects like Geography are taught to Black students, in Africa, without academic references from African scholars and progressives in the Global South, it undermines the struggle to rewrite the narrative of Black people as “the wretched of the earth”, and of the natural environment divorced from indigenous knowledge forms, practices, beliefs, cultures and spirituality. This is why I am conflicted. I want Black academics to leave the violence of historically White universities, but their going leaves devastation in its wake.