UCT refusing to hire black professors
- Published on 24 Mar 2015
- HR Pulse News Desk
Lecturers, academics and other staff at the University of Cape Town (UCT) have entered the fray around the Cecil John Rhodes statue debate, slamming the institution for a lack of transformation, and echoing students’ demand for the Rhodes statue to be removed from campus grounds.
Lecturer Xolela Mangcu highlighted a lack of staff transformation and accused vice-chancellor Max Price of deliberately refusing to hire black professors. “Max Price insists it is difficult to get black professors at the university, but I have given him and the university council a list of black professors from Harvard, Yale and Columbia universities,” he said.
Mangcu claimed that there were currently only five black senior professors at UCT out of 200. National Education Health and Allied Workers’ Union (Nehawu) UCT branch chairwoman Patricia Berry said not enough black staff were being promoted to senior levels, where they could play an active role in decision-making. Senior researcher Zethu Matebeni pointed out that the issue of outsourced workers, who were mostly black and employed as cleaners, needed to be addressed too
