IRR: Will SA’s universities sacrifice excellence, and the futures of students, at the altar of apartheid-era racial quotas?

The Institute of Race Relations (IRR) will be writing to the vice-chancellors and principals of all 26 South African universities this week to ask if they intend forcibly classifying their staff by race, should individuals decline to self-classify, in line with the newly gazetted Employment Equity Sectoral Numerical Targets.

These new quotas, dishonestly labelled “targets" to avoid specific legal challenges, are due to come into effect later this year and mandate both public and private sector employers to prepare for compliance and coercive enforcement by the state. Failure to comply could result in penalties of up to the greater of R1.5 million or 2% of annual turnover for first-time offenders.

Preparation for compliance includes a workforce audit requiring employers to account for the number of employees in each designated category. To do this, staff must complete the EEA1 form, identifying their race as African, Coloured, Indian, or White. However, the form shockingly offers no “Other” option for those unwilling to classify themselves racially – raising serious constitutional concerns about freedom of association, dignity, and equality.

Says IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Makone Maja: “We are writing to universities, who are explicitly included in the regulations, to ask if they will compel staff to identify by race – and if they will forcibly assign racial identities to those who refuse. Universities are not mere employers; they are meant to be champions of free thought, academic inquiry, and the nurturing of merit and excellence. For institutions of learning to submit meekly to a pencil-test system of demeaning race audits is to betray their purpose.”

IRR research, as set out in the Blueprint for Growth: Breaking the BEE Barrier to Growth, has shown how the ideology of “demographic representivity” has not delivered justice or jobs – it has delivered stagnation, corruption, and collapsing sectors. Racial quotas serve political elites, entrenching bureaucracy and box-ticking over merit, and sow division rather than build excellence and trust.

Says Maja: “We are already hearing from those in favour of more and more apartheid-era racial classification that opposing these arbitrary targets is tantamount to opposing the upliftment of black South Africans. Nothing could be further from the truth. These perverse race-rigged quotas do not come at the cost of just those races out of favour with the political powers that be. All South Africans stand to lose from this blatant attempt at job laundering through prejudiced box-ticking.

“If a university or company wanted to appoint a talented black woman on pure merit, but the corresponding quota had already been met, it would be legally barred from giving her a job. When it comes to our universities, these race-rigged quotas put at risk the education and futures of all students of all races and identities. Instead of allowing institutions of learning to have a laser focus on excellence and merit, the government seems intent on sacrificing the ability of young South Africans to learn from the best in their fields, irrespective of race.”

The IRR’s correspondence with all universities will be made public over the coming weeks. Further engagement with other affected sectors will follow.

Media contact: Makone Maja, IRR Strategic Engagements Manager Tel: 079 418 6676 Email: makone@irr.org.za

Media enquiries: Michael Morris Tel: 066 302 1968 Email: michael@irr.org.za