Rhodes students storm law faculty following rape allegations
About 70 students reportedly stormed Rhodes University’s law faculty in Grahamstown on Monday morning.
This comes as a list of 11 male students accused of sexual assaults has been circulated on Facebook.
The students are demanding to speak to the law facility’s dean about the rape allegations as a majority of the accused are law students.
University spokeswoman Catherine Deiner was unavailable for comment.
Student newspaper Oppidan Press @oppidanpress on Monday tweeted a photograph of “students gathered outside Law Department plan go move to Drostdy‚ via the Education Department #RUreferencelist”.
On Sunday night‚ students marched to various residences looking for the individuals on the so-called “Reference List”.
The topic trended on Twitter under the #RUReferenceList hashtag‚ with many students calling for a campus-wide shutdown‚ and for the university to take responsibility for the actions of the offenders on the list.
On Monday‚ Sista Bethuna @BongoMuffing used it when she tweeted her support: “Wow. The victims who compiled the #RUReferenceList are SO brave. This is so vital. Make their lives bloody uncomfortable.”
Rhodes University vice-chancellor Sizwe Mabizela on Sunday night allegedly called for residences to be shut‚ to prevent the crowd from getting to other alleged offenders.
A set of demands were sent to Mabizela‚ to be met by 4pm‚ from the Rhodes University Chapter 2.12 - "a campaign addressing rape culture at universities and holding management accountable for the inadequate way that rape is dealt with''.
Demands include that the university proctors step down; a team be appointed to investigate sexual assaults; changes are made to the sexual harassment policy; sexual assault offenders may not run for SRC and that no student who is part of a protest will face disciplinary action.
