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The Higher Education Transformation Network (HETN), hereby notes the plans by Mr Willie Spies and Afriforum to launch legal
action against the HETN for defamation owing to our principled objection against the election of Afriforum's Willie Spies to the
University of Pretoria Council.

The HETN, acting on behalf of its alumni membership, is in the process of preparing summonses through its legal
representatives to commence with the issuing of its own summonses against the University of Pretoria for the disqualification of
Mr Willie Spies of Afriforum from the Council of the University of Pretoria due to election irregularities that have taken place. In
addition to the court challenges that we are planning, the HETN is in the process to escalate the unholy alliance between
Afriforum and the University of Pretoria to the Equality Court for redress.
The rationale for our legal actions is to compel the University of Pretoria from proceeding with the appointment of Mr Willie Spies
to the Pretoria University Council. The HETN stands by and reiterates its disputing and rejection of the recent unfair “election” of
Mr Willie Spies of Afriforum to the Council of the University of Pretoria on the basis of “advancement of the general interests of
the UP.

Beyond being a spokesman and legal representative of Afriforum, Mr Spies has as Chairperson of the Sonop Mens Hostel,
presided over the systematic victimization and exclusion of countless black students at the Sonop Mens Hostel. Between 1990
and 1992, Mr Spies was a leader and member of the Konserwatieve Party -Tuks, a student wing of the Conservative Party at the
university, a far right radical grouping which managed amongst others to disrupt through sheer violence the Honourable
President Nelson Mandela’s visit to the UP in 1991 as well as then-Minister Roelf Meyer’s address to students in 1993.

The fact that Mr Spies leads Tuks Alumni, an alumni body that is predominantly white, excludes black alumni and a body that
has under Mr Spies’ leadership consistently refused to negotiate a revamped Constitution that will include the participation of
black alumni is a course for great concern to the HETN. Apart from a few new token black faces co-opted on the Tuks Alumni
Board, black graduates have no meaningful representation in the Tuks Alumni Board controlled by Mr Spies and Afriforum. The
HETN belives that this racist Afriforum-controlled structure must be disbanded for the establishment of an inclusive alumni body.
It is the firm belief of the HETN that legal action is one of the only available recourse available to us as the University of Pretoria
management has failed to give leadership on transformation processes in terms of the Higher Education Act No 101 of 1997, the
University of Pretoria Statute of 2003 and has consistently sided with and allowed rightwing grouping such as Afriforum to hijack
university structures such as the Tuks Alumni Board.

The Higher Education Transformation Network further calls for a Ministerial Commission of enquiry into racism at the University
of Pretoria to further investigate this matter as well as the non-representation of black graduates on the Alumni Board, the role of
Afriforum in the university’s management, privatization of higher education resources, the flouting of Public Finance management
Act (PFMA) regulations as well as non-compliance with Employment Equity statutory legislation.
We will not await Afriforum idle threats at legal action but will instead swiftly commence with legal action against the UP. We
further challenge the University of Pretoria management to come out of the closet and officially join Afriforum in their planned
court action against the HETN for our principled stance for higher education transformation.