Incitement by Students

At this point, the Rector closed the University, ordered the students off the campus and announced that only those would be allowed to return who reapplied for admission. The next day, June 12, the Minister for Coloured Relations, Dr Schalk van der Merwe, defended the Rector's actions, charging that there had been "signs of incitement" by students bent on destroying the institution. Security police were out in force to keep the students off campus. But they needn't have bothered; the students voted overwhelmingly against reapplying for admission on the rector's terms. They adopted a motion expressing "abhorrence" at the "racist nature" of education in South Africa. They insisted that all students be readmitted at once.

When the incident came up in the South African Parliament, a member of the Opposition contended that the students had "a real case". After 13 years, he said, there were only 12 Coloureds on the University staff, compared with 79 whites. This could not be fair or right. The students, he insisted, should not be regarded as agitators. The Minister of Coloured Relations then announced the formation of a commission of inquiry to look into the students' grievances.

Another commission would consider the question of readmission. Both commissions he said, would have Coloured members on them.