University Discovers Prospective Medical School Student is White, Cancels Acceptance

[Stormraaf]

For those aware of the situation it will be no news that the bar for gaining acceptance to medical school in SA is set much higher for whites than for other races (particularly blacks). It stems from what is effectively a quota system, with high-merit whites jockeying for the comparatively few spots reserved for them while lower-achieving Bantus, for example, are afforded much more room in medical schools. The prospective student in the below case shares the same fate as many others, but it's newsworthy probably because it involves the university reversing its decision to allow her to study medicine after a university official investigated and discovered she's white, post-acceptance. It's a nice demonstration of what affirmative action in education boils down to.

Too white to study medicine
27 November, 2011 01:50

The University of Stellenbosch reversed its decision to grant a pupil a place in medical school - after discovering that she was white, not coloured, as she had mistakenly stated in her online application.

The 18-year-old applicant, who asked that she not be named, achieved six distinctions in her Grade 11 exams and, in September, learnt the university had accepted her application. But, on October 13, Dr Ronel Retief, the head of academic administration, phoned her to verify her race.

The teenager told Retief she was white - and was informed this would affect her chances of being admitted to study medicine.

University spokesman Susan van der Merwe said the pupil's selection was reversed after it came to light that the applicant made "a bona fide mistake" on the application form.

[full article]

[Afrikaans article]

To be fair to the woman (with the Afrikaner name) who phoned the matriculant, and whichever Germanics were possibly involved in the decision to take back the girl's acceptance to medical school, the policy does create, in the case of an erroneous submission of racial details, a dilemma even for someone who are opposed to the policy, because had it been filled in correctly, other, higher-achieving whites would themselves be higher on the selection list.

[Wulfsige]

Apartheid gone full circle i would say, its a disgrace. Whats sad about those stupid rules they were probably made up by whites.

[Horagalles]

Apartheid gone full circle i would say, its a disgrace. Whats sad about those stupid rules they were probably made up by whites.

.... No, it isn't. Even if lot's of people talk about "reversed Apartheid", when pointing to that kind of incidents in fact it isn't. When the National Party was in charge and had a policy of "separate development", any qualifying non-White learner would have be admitted to a University. Just that it would have been a University assigned to his race group. What's different now is that All Universities in South Africa have a policy of rejecting Whites based on their race.

[Rächer]

Apartheid gone full circle i would say, its a disgrace. Whats sad about those stupid rules they were probably made up by whites.

Yes, Whites and others that might sometimes seem white, but are not...

[Gerhardt Maritz]

My Apartheid Government NEVER denied anybody in South Africa an education. As a matter of fact quite recently one of the baboons which acts as a minister in Parlement was so stupid to admit publicly that education especially for blacks were much better when the whites were still in charge. The NP just wanted separate education. We built a world class Medical University called MEDUNSA to the north of Pretoria where thousands of very successful doctors were trained because we did not want to allow them on the white campusses. Whether it was good or bad is not the issue. The present tells us it was better.