Introduction
The German scholar, Jürgen Habermas’s (1989) account of the public sphere, is one whereby people come together as a public to engage in debate over rules governing human relations – that is, a space where people use their reason, or where they (people) invoke “the art of critical–rational public debate” (Habermas 1989: 29). Following, Habermas’s elucidation of the public sphere, it can be claimed that a university is a social structure of the public sphere. It is at the university where people, in a Habermasian way, express their opinions, freedoms, judgments and recommendations on affairs of the state and civil society based on insight and argument (Habermas 1989: 117). Alternatively, critical debate is the touchstone of truth and by implication of university life (Habermas 1989: 118). Considering the above understanding of a university within the space of the public sphere, it seems inconceivable, to say the least, that university academics and students should become disengaged from critical debate about controversial matters. By controversial matters, I mean matters that require deep and reflective thinking about what people (dis)agree on. Usually, controversy surrounds decisions that people reach that some might find agreeable and others reprehensible. For instance, although some university students in South Africa consider the payment of tuition fees as necessary to university education, other students might find the payment of such fees as burdensome. The controversy arises when decisions are made that adversely affect both groups of students. In this chapter, I elaborate on the ramifications of a lack of critical debate on controversial issues in the (South African) public university. I specifically focus my attention on how a disengagement with controversial issues at public universities could lead to the disintegration of the public sphere. However, as I argue, public deliberation should not be conceived as strictly a mode of argumentation and debate among participants, but rather, a pragmatic way of pluralist joint activity through which shared agreements can ensue and manifest in the public sphere.
On the Downfall of the Public University
I shall now look at three controversial issues that emerged at the university where I work. Firstly, when a university academic antagonistically affronted some students in her class because they (students) questioned her for teaching in a language that categorically excluded them, she momentarily suspended what a university actually stands for – academics engaging critically with students about controversial matters. Lecturing black students in Afrikaans – the language of instruction formerly considered as compulsory in public universities in the apartheid past – without acknowledging their incapacity to comprehend important pedagogical concepts and to engage critically with them, is not a matter of only flouting the institutional language policy , but also one of misrecognising one’s students and treating them with contempt. How does a university academic who bluntly refuses to engage with irate students on the grounds that they have been excluded from pedagogical understanding, advance the claims of a university to openness and deliberative engagement ? Simply put, if a university academic dismisses her students on the basis that she considers it her legitimate right to lecture in the language of her choice, even though doing so would disengage them, then such an academic has put the university’s responsibility to engage one another critically, at risk. When critical debate is not constitutive of what a university ought to be encouraging, then the downfall of the public university is imminent. Habermas aptly states that a university that fails to ensure the coherence of the public as a critically debating entity can be said to have been considerably weakened (Habermas 1989: 162).
Secondly, and quite controversially, a group of academics at the institution where I work decided to publish an article on coloured (a racist term referred to people of colour) women’s apparently low cognitive functioning. The ensuing fallout played out on many levels – institutionally in terms of ethical compliance and regulation; academically, in terms of racial essentialism; politically, in terms of the continuing humiliation and degradation of a historically maligned category of people, superficially referred to as “coloured”. Condemned as racist research , the outcry from certain groups of academics was to the extent that the journal eventually withdrew its publication due to public pressure. In seeming uncertainty, the initial response from the university was one of detachment and disengagement – under the auspices of academic freedom . This was followed by a response of disappointment in this type of research – an investigation to be launched immediately that would hold the academics accountable.
When senate convened, about two months later, the university’s vice-rector was asked to provide an update on the promised investigation into the research, and how the researchers were able to attain ethical clearance, considering that pressure was mounting from inside and outside the institution to hold the responsible academics accountable. Instead, the vice-rector called upon the dean of the faculty where these academics are based. He, in turn, appealed to the senate to “forgive” these colleagues even though the case was still under investigation by the institution as it was claimed that it is more feasible to follow such an approach than to marginalise and even penalise the responsible academics. It would seem that the dean’s articulation of the coloured women affair was biased towards the academics, who had written the article, as opposed to a willingness to bring into question the apparent disregard of ethical conduct. Stated differently, there appeared to be a need to dismiss the incident for fear of reputational damage to the university, rather than going to the trouble of dealing with the pain and harm that had indeed been caused by this article. This reminds me of Habermas’s (1989) assertion that conversation and discussion in the public sphere and universities are no exception, have been prearranged and become superfluous on the basis that critical debate has been pre-planned and engagement avoided (Habermas 1989: 164). If a controversial university matter such as that which deals with the humiliation of a marginalised group of women can be side-stepped in a very organised way in the highest academic body of the university, then it simply means that the university has not adequately fulfilled, what Habermas refers to as “its publicist function” (Habermas 1989: 164). On what basis does university management encourage reconciliation and forgiveness when the issue about demeaning other women has not been subjected to critical-rational engagement? This only leads to the inference that reconciliation and forgiveness are unconditional human acts that do not require any form of argumentative sub...