CAFA response to Makgoba 's press release : IMC-SA

January 20, 2006

Professor M.W. Makgoba
Howard College Campus
University of KwaZulu-Natal
Durban 4000
South Africa

Dear Professor Makgoba:

Thank you for sending the Committee for Academic Freedom in Africa (CAFA) the
press release issued by Professor Dasarath Chetty concerning the position of
Dr. Ashwin Desai at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. I have circulated it to my
colleagues on the board of CAFA, as you requested.

We do not believe, however, that your press release addresses the main issue
raised in our letter to you. We continue to believe that your instruction that
Dr. Desai may not be considered for paid or honorary employment at UKZN is a
violation of a basic principle of academic freedom, and we according urge you
to withdraw that instruction.

Your press release emphasizes that Dr. Desai left the University of
Durban-Westville in 1996 in terms of an agreement that was in full and final
settlement of the parties' rights. Even if this was a full and accurate account
of that agreement, it would not justify your current violation of the principles
of academic freedom. At best, it would mean that, instead of initiating such a
violation yourself, you are endorsing and seeking to breathe new life into the
earlier violation of those principles effected by the UDW agreement of 1996.

It seems quite plausible to us that the UDW agreement was the result of highly
coercive circumstances. The statement of the Combined Staff Association of UKZN
describes the report that formed the basis of disciplinary charges against Dr.
Desai as a "patent witch-hunt" and gives details of irregularities in the
procedures that led to it. Of the agreement itself, the statement says, "With
the union leadership banned from campus and with the union facing crippling
legal fees, Dr Desai decided to compromise." Whether this account of the
circumstances of the agreement is correct or not, we do not believe that any
agreement which has the effect of forbidding university bodies from considering
specific candidates for academic positions is justifiable.

We also do not believe that the onus is on Dr. Desai to show that he is eligible
to be considered for an academic position. Indeed, a violation of academic
freedom of this kind concerns not only Dr. Desai as an individual. It has the
effect of constraining inquiry more generally, by signaling that the university
will act against academics whose work articulates the ideas and aspirations of
poor and oppressed communities. It impoverishes the community of scholarship in
South Africa and internationally.

We also cannot believe that you are powerless to change this situation, as your
press release suggests. We urge you to take whatever steps are necessary to
ensure that neither Dr. Desai nor any other qualified applicant should be
barred from having their candidacy for a position at UKZN considered.

Sincerely,

Prof. George Caffentzis for the CAFA editorial board