AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY APARTHEID IN UNIVERSITIES

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28869, 14 April 1959, Page 15

AUSTRALIAN EMBASSY

APARTHEID IN UNIVERSITIES

Opposition By Students CAPE TOWN, April 12. Student representatives of all English-language universities in South Africa today declared in a press statement that they would not accept the principles or provisions of the Nationalist Government’s bill which seeks to introduce apartheid into universities. The statement, issued after a week-end conference of the Students’ Representative Council, said they would refuse to accept the bill even though it had already been read for the second time in Parliament. The conference was held at the University of Cape Town under the chairmanship of the president of the National Union of South African Students, Neville Rubin. The statement said the meeting, representing 15.050 students, had decided to send a deputation to the Minister of Education (Mr Jan, Serfontein) to ask that even at this late stage the Bill be withdrawn.

The statement added: “As the Government is well aware, students of no fewer than 67 countries in Europe. North America, Africa, Asia and Latin America have affirmed the same degree of distaste of this legislation as has been evinced by students in South Africa.” The Bill, which has passed its second reading, now faces detailed discussion by a Parliamentary Committee before its third and final reading by the House. It seeks to set up white and nonwhite universities.