Clip Art for Student Expulsion Clip Art for Failure to Report Sexual Harassment

Today is the day y'all have to go to class with the boy who sexually assaulted you. Y'all will sit down behind him to proceed him in your field of vision. You will recall the manner he said, "Let me pull downwardly your panties so y'all tin be a nasty girl, 'cos I know y'all like those things," as he stood between you and the bathroom door.

Today is the twenty-four hour period – even subsequently he was found to have cleaved the student code and was expelled – that you lot will have to see the face that was pressed up against yours as he pinned you to the bathroom sink. Because today is but another day on campus, and you are merely another adult female who has been failed by a university's disciplinary organisation.

. . .

Nineteen-yr-old Larissa Mwanyama is a beginning-yr fine art student at the Hiddingh Campus at the University of Cape Town (UCT), which houses the fine arts and drama faculties in the Cape Town CBD. On the afternoon of October iv 2015 at around 1pm, she says, she went to the women's bath and was followed by a male student.

"I asked him: 'What are y'all doing within the bathroom?' and he kind of ignored my question."

The male student was Sipho Mpongo, a 22-year-old lensman whose work has been historic in these pages, a Magnum grant recipient, author of a bluntly incredible photo series chosen Born Gratis, and one of the Michaelis School of Fine Art's rising stars.

In his version of events, he "asked her if I should go inside the cubicle with her because I was dislocated as to what was going on ... I tried to kiss her and she said no and I let her go. We both left the toilet."

UCT'southward discrimination and harassment role, which processes complaints, and the academy's student disciplinary tribunal, which metes out justice, seal their hearings and records. The only reason this story can be told is because both Mpongo and Mwanyama have consented to interviews and agreed to exist named.

Any information that was shared by UCT in the course of my investigation was garnered because UCT communications manager Pat Lucas was either confirming or denying the events I put to her.

Make no error, this is not an isolated case. Co-ordinate to UCT, "in 2015, the bigotry and harassment office received eight complaints dealing with rape, attempted rape and sexual attack, and 13 complaints of sexual harassment".

How many cases went unreported is anyone's guess.

. . .

On the morning of October five, Mwanyama approached a senior pupil and mentor and told her about the ordeal.

After consulting staff, they were referred to the Educatee Wellness Service, which suggested that she speak to a defended campus counsellor. The counsellor would not exist at Hiddingh for nearly a week, then the senior student drove Mwanyama to the Upper Campus. After they made the formal statement to the bigotry and harassment office, a no-contact order was obtained to prohibit contact between the accuser and the accused on academy property.

Mpongo did not show up for the initial tribunal and a representative from the discrimination and harassment office indicated that they would become the guild to him.

Mwanyama started to speak to other female person students. Not only had she allegedly had a previous, similar incident with Mpongo, she was hearing that others had also been bothered past him and his friends. She says a total of 23 young women told her Mpongo had sexually harassed them.

The post-obit mean solar day, in contravention of the protection order, Mpongo tried to speak to Mwanyama on campus.

A Michaelis student says: "This was a moment in which staff were required to take activity with respect to the discrimination and harassment office's process. They did not do so."

Information technology has now emerged that the order was served on Mpongo only three days after it was requested.

Information technology was at this point that some other member of Michaelis' staff suggested to Mwanyama that she would be improve positioned to study from her room in res then that she would not have to deal with the trauma of seeing Mpongo on campus. Boosted didactics materials would be sent to her.

Essentially, this would have cut her off from all of her support networks on campus. The hearing was postponed and Mpongo continued to attend classes.

How did information technology get to the point where a first-year student at the state's most prestigious fine art school could allegedly commit dozens of acts of sexual harassment before he was called out? The fact that nigh none of the thirteen students and lecturers I spoke to wished to be named for fear of negatively impacting their careers speaks volumes.

. . .

To zoom out for a moment, an incident that occurred at the drama department's mock awards upshot in November is illustrative. One tongue-in-cheek category included "best on-stage kiss". The winners went upward to receive their crowns and the crowd chanted: "Kiss! Kiss! Buss!" The young woman politely refused. The boyfriend grabbed her by the caput and forced his face into hers. The crowd burst into cheers, even subsequently it was plain that the girl was upset and traumatised. She quietly left the function.

There was a rape reported during the #FeesMustFall protests, in the epicentre of rubber – Azania House. To catch the alleged perpetrator, female students named and showed a photograph of him on social media, having given up on achieving justice through the organization in a country awash with sexual violence.

I don't wish to diminish Mpongo'southward actions, simply in my opinion they cannot be considered in isolation. It could be argued that 400 years of colonialism and the apartheid migrant labour system damaged black families and acquired untold generational impairment by taking away fathers. At its core, any organization of patriarchy is bound to event in violence.

And we need to remember that a university such as UCT, with its affluence of white fine art graduates, needs bright talent like Mpongo, and seems willing to go so far as to forgive him practically annihilation just to be able to say it has this young black star to testify that information technology is not a racist establishment.

. . .

On Oct 15, on the eve of the #FeesMustFall uprising, a protest action was held at Hiddingh, organised past Mwanyama and other students, following what they felt was a distinct lack of decisive action. The march was made up of 20 to 30 almost exclusively female protesters. One of them, in frustration, broke her silence and named the defendant equally Mpongo. This was captured on video, along with a claim that the protesters knew of 59 incidents of sexual harassment by Mpongo and other young men.

The march moved to the Michaelis building, where a lecture was taking identify on masculinity and violence. Associate professor Fritha Langerman met the march.

When I spoke to Langerman the week afterward the protestation, she clarified that the discrimination and harassment role was the only process bachelor and had to be allowed to run its course, but she did add together that the problem of sexual harassment of students on campus was "vast and unspoken. More than students demand to come frontward."

Langerman's statement was echoed by Lucas: "We are concerned that many students endeavour to bargain with the trauma of such an offence on their own ... This is specially tragic when such effective forms of back up are available at UCT – a logic that seems to suggest that victims of sexual violence are to blame for not-reporting."

Afterward the eventual hearing, when asked near how he felt about the march, Mpongo said: "[Information technology] fabricated me feel their pain, and it never occurred to me that such behaviour was wrong towards women. I came to a realisation about how I grew upwards back home speaking about women ... Information technology is such a sensitive issue and I was in total solidarity with them. At that place is a fine line between wanting to date someone and probably mistreating them … Nosotros are not taught much virtually treating women in South Africa."

. . .

In an equally yet unsent letter of the alphabet to Michaelis staff, another student states that the defendant "took advantage of the platform of his last foundation course lecture to deliver a speech near his part in the declared set on. He stated that he and Larissa were just 'playing'."

Mwanyama responds with placidity determination: "This is not true and he knows this, and for me to take to clarify this constantly is insulting, disgusting, unnecessary."

The letter goes on to say that nothing was done to terminate Mpongo's voice communication, "regardless of its potential to trigger other students who have come forward and claimed harassment past this same man".

During this, the assaulted student sat in her res room, afraid to attend class.

In his interview, Mpongo is apprehensive at first. When asked about allegations of other incidents, he said: "I intend to practise intense research almost my behaviour and [that of] my friends around me. I am doing introspection and I am seeing a psychologist. All sorts of help is needed."

. . .

At the Hiddingh Campus, students often piece of work late, often alone. "When somewhere you consider a home-similar place is violated," says a educatee, "it makes you re-evaluate merely how safe you are there ... On a few occasions, I accept gone through escape strategies in my head."

The fundamental problem lies with the arrangement.

Says one of the protestation organisers: "People kept proverb nosotros would ruin his career. I say he ruined his career the minute he laid claim over someone else'southward body. That type of arrogance comes from knowing he can get away with it. Information technology'south a shame that someone'southward career and epitome are more important than some other's life and wellbeing."

There is an anecdotal story that has been told to me by three different women near a male artist in the main's group who no longer speaks to women at Michaelis.

"I guess this is intended every bit punishment for what is conspicuously 'a conspiracy' targeting Sipho, undoubtedly run by some hole-and-corner feminist cartel," says i.

I was even contacted past ii unlike prominent male artists, asking why I was "persecuting" Mpongo.

. . .

The closed-door hearing was set for November xiv, at which the accused would represent himself, and Mwanyama would detect herself in a room with only her lawyer, a mediator and her alleged assaulter. Somewhen, the hearing happened on Nov 24.

"Considering Sipho chose to defend himself ... he had to sit through the whole procedure, while I only went in for my statement," says Mwanyama. "I didn't hear the ruling, I didn't hear his statement ... He went in beginning considering they had to press charges ... And and so Sipho had to ask me questions. Then he asks me, 'Larissa, if you saw me following you lot to the bathroom, why didn't you tell me to become abroad?' I said I knew exactly what he was doing ... because the boys' bathroom is at the bottom of the staircase ... and the girls' bathroom is at the acme.

"And then he went off: 'Larissa, I don't know where this is coming from; we were friends! I don't know why she'due south doing this 'cos she called me to the bathroom, and I was her friend – so I went with her and she nagged me to be with her, then I stayed.'"

She continues: "What actually upset me was that the assessors nearly took his question into serious consideration, because, thereafter, the questions were, 'Oh, simply Larissa, why didn't you lot tell him to get away?' All I could call up of was why am I held under trial? The whole situation was very uncomfortable. I didn't feel like anyone really took what I was saying seriously. Information technology was virtually like he'due south been given, like, a go out of jail free menu."

. . .

The adjacent twenty-four hour period I sent further questions through to Lucas, who responded nearly immediately: "The student disciplinary tribunal has finalised this instance. The student was constitute to have breached the educatee code; was expelled; the expulsion was suspended; and a sanction of 65 hours of community service was imposed."

My interview with Mpongo took place past e-mail a few days later the hearing. After two weeks of not hearing from her, I sent Mwanyama follow-up questions. Both she and Mpongo confirmed that they would be attending Michaelis in 2016.

Although she would eventually receive an e-mail from UCT well-nigh the outcome of the hearing, Mwanyama outset heard it from me. In the instance of Mwanyama vs Mpongo, UCT neglected to timeously inform the complainant of the consequence.

"I am just satisfied that at that place is an outcome. I genuinely thought that the board would come up up with another filibuster," she told me. "However, I am concerned about whether Sipho understands how intense his offence was ... I am uncomfortable that nosotros volition be sharing the same space next yr, but I have to deal with it and movement on. Most of the time, I felt very alone and out of the loop. Sometimes it felt like all the responsibility was on me."

If UCT's organisation had been more effective, if information technology did non reinforce in young men'due south minds that they were entitled to women'due south bodies through the arrangement'due south very muteness, then Mwanyama and Mpongo would not be in that classroom as adversaries in 2016.

In the cease, Mpongo still claims Mwanyama led him past the hand to the bathroom, only he "was wrong for thinking what Larissa and I had was consensual. It is hard to be a man in this land. What the police says and how people acquit, and the notion of love and being loved, is too different."

Mpongo concludes his final WhatsApp conversation with me by proverb: "I have a greater responsibility of finding out what information technology means to exist a man in this country."

Mwanyama, however, is under no illusions about what it means to be a woman.

Women – such as these at the Academy of Pretoria – took the lead in the #FeesMustFall protests, which happened shortly after the Hiddingh Campus protest that spoke out against harassment at the hands of men within the move. PHOTO: HERMAN VERWEY

UCT RESPONDS

This is an edited response to our story from UCT'due south Pat Lucas, manager: communications and media liaison.

. It is simply not the example that UCT "needs bright talent like Mpongo, and seems willing to get then far equally to forgive him practically anything just to be able to say it has this young black star to prove that it is not a racist institution". Mr Mpongo was charged and found guilty on four serious charges and a sanction was imposed; he was non, and has not been, forgiven.

. Mr Mpongo was charged nether the UCT pupil lawmaking and found guilty of sexual harassment, sexual assault and interfering with the complainant in this example in such a way equally to create an intimidating, hostile or demeaning environment.

. The academy'southward Student Discipline Tribunal expelled Mr Mpongo, only suspended the expulsion on ii conditions: that he completes 65 hours of community service and that he does not commit any further offence while a student at UCT.

. A no-contact club was served on October 9 2015, three days afterward the complainant practical for it, and a disciplinary example followed.

. UCT takes the question of gender violence seriously – but that is not to say that we have succeeded in eliminating the problem on campus.

. The discrimination and harassment part has a specific mandate to help students and staff members to better understand and modify attitudes towards gender discrimination, sexual harassment, other forms of harassment, domestic violence and rape; it provides a counselling and arbitration service and supports victims through disciplinary processes. We also accept a 24-60 minutes whistle-blower hotline.

* An before version of this story was missing a paragraph due to a technical error. It has been inserted.

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Source: https://www.news24.com/citypress/news/an-art-school-gender-protest-20160103

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