Johannesburg - Far from being a bully, embattled University of Cape Town vice-chancellor Professor Mamokgethi Phakeng was wrongly accused by the “overly sensitive” husband of an academic at the centre of a May 2020 race row, according to a new report into allegations of bullying against her.
Professor Jeremy Seekings, the husband of Professor Nicoli Nattrass, whose controversial article in the South African Journal of Science in May 2020 was criticised for being offensive to black South Africans, complained to the university council chair, Babalwa Ngonyama, on August 2, 2021, about bullying and inappropriate action from Phakeng around his wife’s issue.
‘Overly Sensitive’
But he was described as “overly sensitive” and attempting to influence the university’s handling of its investigation into the furore over his wife’s article. Prof Nattrass had questioned, “Why are black South African students less likely to consider studying biological sciences”, resulting in widespread condemnation on campus, with the Black Academic Caucus saying the paper had drawn “disturbing conclusions”.
Before formal proceedings to investigate the allegations of bullying started, Prof Seekings and Prof Phakeng had informally met at first. They then attempted to address the bullying claims to resolve the complaint through a confidential mediation process.
But after failing to find a solution, Prof Seekings, who was among a group of academics who made bullying allegations against the vice-chancellor before the former ombud Zetu Makamandela-Mguqulwa in 2019/2020, had asked Ngonyama to intervene, claiming that he had been bullied at a senate meeting on March 5, 2021. The council chair advised Prof Seekings that she would appoint an independent advisory panel to assess the complaint, in terms of UCT’s Human Resources Policy.
Ramushu Mashile Twala Inc attorneys in Sandton were engaged to put together a three-member panel – made up of Ms Gcwalisile Makhathini; Graeme Fourie, and Kwandokuhle Ncube – to probe the complaint and make recommendations.
University World News has obtained a copy of the report amid renewed tensions at UCT following Prof Phakeng taking a sabbatical that she has since cancelled. Currently, she is an Illustrious Visiting Professor in the United Kingdom at the University of Bristol. Prof Phakeng officially called off her research leave and started attending meetings online before returning to South Africa next Wednesday.
Phakeng probe
Central to the panel’s task was finding whether there was evidence of misconduct against the vice-chancellor; and making recommendations, considering the results in line with UCT policies.
But in a twist, the panel found instead that through the disclosure of the email correspondence between Prof Seekings and Prof Phakeng, as well as their encounter at the Senate meeting on March 5, 2021, it was the alleged tone of Prof Phakeng at the same Senate meeting, which Prof Seekings had perceived as bullying.
The panel concluded, from listening to the recording of the Senate meeting of March 5, 2021, that Prof Phakeng’s response to the questions was contrite and answered professionally and respectfully.
“It, therefore, follows that this panel cannot, on the most favourable interpretation for the complainant, make a finding that the allegations of bullying against the respondent have any merit,” said the report.
In their findings, they said the panel has considered the complainant’s allegations of bullying by Prof Phakeng by ultimately undertaking an objective-subjective assessment of the complainant’s perception of the respondent’s alleged hostile and offensive conduct and weighed this up as more fully detailed herein, against the perception of a reasonable person in the same position as the complainant. In this regard, the panel found that Prof Seekings was overly sensitive in his perception of Prof Phakeng’s conduct as hostile or offensive.
Undermining UCT?
Prof Seekings, furthermore, and by his actions, necessitated the disclosure of the content of the email correspondence as there existed a reasonable belief on the part of Prof Phakeng that Prof Seekings, as a representative for Prof Nattrass, was attempting to unduly influence the University Executive’s handling of the matter relating to the Prof Nattrass’s publication.
According to the panel, the concept of bullying has received minimal attention from the courts and the legislature, saying that it was necessary to provide a brief analysis of the idea of bullying in the workplace to enable it to conceptualise an acceptable definition of bullying within the conspectus of the present allegations made by Prof Seekings.
An investigation into the meaning of workplace bullying, therefore, implies an understanding of all its features; this, therefore, calls for a thorough investigation into the allegations and all the ancillary documents and information which appear to be interwoven with the complainant’s complaint of bullying.
However, regarding the first allegation of bullying before the Senate, Prof Seekings alleged that in answering questions, Prof Phakeng had attacked him by name and that her conduct demeaned, humiliated, and intimidated him.
Prof Seekings is also a member of the Senate. “Her attack on me was not prompted by anything I said or tabled in that Senate meeting. The attack on me concerned my efforts to facilitate a mediated de-escalation of the dispute between the ‘Executive’ and another member of the Senate,” he said.
“The VC’s attack on me was inappropriate and an abuse of her power as Chair of the Senate. Moreover, she misled Senate. The VC failed to treat me with appropriate respect and dignity.”
In her comments, Phakeng said his remarks in email correspondence with her nine months previously “should disturb all of us as members of Senate”.
What Prof Phakeng told the Senate
Phakeng told the panel that she stated at the Senate meeting of November 20, 2020 that she called the former editor of the South African Journal of Science concerning Prof Nattrass’s “Commentary” published in the journal in her capacity as a member of the Academy of Science of SA and as a scholar concerned about the scholarly merit of the commentary, not officially as the Vice-Chancellor.
Drawing the attention of the Senate to e-mail conversations between herself and Prof Seekings that started on the 14th of June on this matter of the commentary by Prof Nattrass.
Given the relationship between Prof Seekings and Prof Nattrass, she assumed that the e-mails were sent with Prof Nattrass's knowledge.
“While I can share extracts of those emails with you, I choose not to do that at this meeting. What is important to indicate is that the offer in the emails is that I’d get ‘protection’ if I got the Executive to retract the statement made in response to the publication of Prof Nattrass’s ‘Commentary.’ This transactional approach is one that I find difficult to take in and one that should disturb all of us as members of the Senate,” Phakeng said.
In her concluding remarks, Prof Phakeng added that a sufficiently large number of members for whom academic freedom can be confused with the protection of a study that falls well below the minimum standard and ethics of scholarship that should be expected.
Panel findings
However, concerning the allegation of bullying at the Senate meeting on March 5, 2021, the panel said it has considered the recording of the Senate meeting provided, together with the accompanying 42 minutes. While Prof Phakeng has mentioned Prof Seekings by name in response to the questions asked by Prof Nattrass, the panel believes this was not without cause. The panel struggled to compute how the referral to Prof Seekings by name, in the current circumstances of this factual matrix, is analogous to bullying and is offensive or hostile to at least the reasonable person in the position of the complainant.
According to Prof Seekings' assertion that he had been belittled, degraded, and disrespected when answering his wife's questions, the panel found no evidence of this when considering the tone and the tenor of Prof Phakeng. “These fail on all accounts to show any element of language which amounts to bullying on any reasonable interpretation. It is difficult in the circumstances to believe that any other person, acting remotely reasonably, would perceive the respondent’s response in the manner that the complainant has.”
But the panel said Prof Phakeng has come across as professional and contrite in her response, and it is the Panel’s opinion that this is how the respondent’s conduct would have been received by any other person acting reasonably.
He was relating the “disclosure” of the content of the correspondence between Phakeng and himself before the Senate led the panel to suspect one of the reasons for his underlying basis of perceiving Phakeng’s conduct as hostile and offensive.
Since he had been involved as a representative for Prof Nattrass following the fallout with the University’s Executive, Seekings had interwoven himself as a representative of Prof Nattrass. He ought to have reasonably appreciated that his correspondence with Phakeng, directly related to the Prof Nattrass fallout, would surface at some point in the deliberations into his wife’s conduct. “He is, after all, Prof Nattrass’s representative in this dispute.”
“That the complainant undertook this role on his recognisance does not appear to occur to the complainant at all. Be that as it may, there certainly does appear to the Panel to be cause for concern as far as the complainant seeks favour for his wife in the face of the fallout with the University’s Executive. The panel cannot accept that a reasonable person in the position of the complainant, acting rationally, would not, consequent upon his actions, his involvement as representative as well as the suggestive undertones in the email correspondence with Prof Phakeng, appreciate that any issue of confidentially and privilege he relies on, would likely require disclosure.
“In perceiving the respondent's conduct as hostile and offensive or demeaning and humiliating, the complainant was, in the panel's opinion, overly sensitive and acting contrary to that of a reasonable person.
“Accordingly, this panel cannot justify the conclusion that the conduct of Phakeng amounts to bullying as alleged.”
The panel said that the policy encapsulates its application and the type of conduct that ordinarily makes up bullying. However, one critical aspect, which concerns instances of isolated instances of bullying, led the panel to comment that more recognition must be given to the concept that suggests that bullying must be a regular occurrence or of a sufficiently serious nature to amount to bullying in isolated circumstances.
In the opinion of the panel, the policy's failure to qualify the seriousness of isolated instances of ‘conduct’ presents a significant shortcoming. The report warned that the perception of the conduct of a reasonable person would safeguard against potentially innocent “aggressors” being charged with misconduct where the “victim” is easily offended. — © Higher Education Media Services