Solidarity today threatened the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN) with legal action if the institution cannot justify the distinction it makes in the awarding of bursaries and fellowships based on race.

This comes after the university’s Department of Health Sciences advertised bursaries and fellowships with different values for different races attached to them.

According to Solidarity, the university’s advertisement states the bursaries are awarded to ‘black South African citizens’ for masters’ and doctoral degrees to the value of R120 000 and R60 000 respectively, whereas the bursaries awarded to ‘other South African citizens’ are only to the value of R80 000 and R45 000.

Solidarity’s deputy chief executive on legal matters Anton van der Bijl said fellowships at the faculty are awarded in a similar manner.

“It is unacceptable to penalise students and young people who are not black, especially in a country like South Africa, where the unemployment rate is increasing all the time. To think that a university, an institution that should be able to understand how important higher education is, can argue like that, boggles the mind.

“As if awarding bursaries with different values based on race is not enough, the faculty also offers paid fellowships where different salaries will apply to different races – not based on need or socio-economic circumstances, but purely based on skin colour.

Replies demanded

“The university pursues this unfair discrimination even further by trying to determine salaries based on race. The legal letter from Solidarity makes it clear that the university must come up with replies. If the university does not offer a satisfactory reply before May 4, we will challenge them in court and we will force the university to justify their actions,” he said.

He said UKZN advertises post-doctoral fellowships at an annual salary of R320 000 for ‘black Africans’, while if ‘other South Africans’ are appointed to the same position, they would only earn R280 000 per annum.