WITS: A University in the Apartheid Era

When the National Government assumed power in 1948, one of the earliest moves was to introduce segregated education. Its threats to restrict the admission of black students into the four ‘open universities’ galvanised the staff and students of those institutions to oppose any attempt to interfere with their autonomy and freedom to decide who should be admitted.



In subsequent years, as the regime adopted increasingly oppressive measures to prop up the apartheid state, opposition on the campu...