SEGREGATION IN UNIVERSITIES

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28259, 23 April 1957, Page 10

SEGREGATION IN UNIVERSITIES

Students Protest To South Africa (New Zealand Press Association) DUNEDIN, April 22. The council meeting of the New Zealand University Students* Association decided today to write to the South African Government condemning legislation aimed at introducing complete segregation into the two South African Universities which at present admit both European and non-European students. The meeting unanimously passed a motion that it considered that to prevent the Universities of Cape Town and Witwatersrand from continuing their present “open” policy would constitute a ‘‘grave breach of the accepted principles of academic freedom.” The motion was introduced by the Otago delegation in response to requests from the National Union of South African Students for expressions of support for their stand against university segregation. Delegates said it was already well known that the association condemned segregation on a number of grounds; but they considered a protest should nevertheless be registered with the South African Government. The only possible basis for such a protest if it was to be seriously considered by the South African Government would be the principles of academic freedom. To suggest that universities which already followed a policy of excluding non-European students should open their doors to non-whites was not realistic, and a motion based on New Zealand ideas of racial equality was equally unlikely to mean anything to a Government which officially disagreed with the concept of equality, it was stated.