In November last year Christian SRC candidate Arthur Vamva took Rhodes University to the Grahamstown High Court for expelling him in 2002 for expressing his views on homosexuality. Philip Rosenthal founder of ChristianView Network reports and comments on the court ruling this month.
In 2022, Arthur Vamva, a leading SRC Presidential candidate, was expelled from Rhodes University when posts he had made against woke LGBT ideology were published by his opponents during his election campaign. His election speech was disrupted by woke activists who threatened him but faced no disciplinary action. He asked the university for a re-trial, but was refused and did not appeal. A poor student, he needed pro bono legal assistance, which took time to find, and thus his application to the Grahamstown High Court was filed 2.5 months after the six month time limit expired. This late filing ultimately became the reason his case was dismissed. He may may have had more chance of being condoned had he given more details on the reasons for the delay. This is ultimately a legal technicality, caused by his financial lack of capacity. His failure to appeal within the university structure was a second reason for dismissal of the review.
A third problem was that Vamva’s pro bono lawyers challenged the constitutionality of the university rule against hate speech, which is much broader than the constitutional precedent. Nevertheless they failed to advertise this, as legally required by the rule 16a of the court, and thus on the day of the hearing, Rhodes university challenged this procedural error, and unwilling to postpone the case, they then dropped the prayer or legal challenge on this point. Had they done so, all other universities with similar rules would have been able to join the case. This procedural error disadvantaged Vamva.
Serious religious freedom problems
But from a religious freedom and free speech-precedent perspective the problems are much more serious:
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- The university disciplinary board and the judge shared the same set of unproven woke ideological philosophical positions, and failed to accept the right to express a contrary Christian view. They could thus not escape their ideology, and wish to shut down debate on it.
- Both refused to accept Vamva’s argument of separating homosexuals as people vs woke ideology as a philosophy or the fact that his views were informed by Scripture, e.g.1 Corinthians 6. Such assumptions challenge the right to express the views of the Bible in the public domain.
- Statements against LGBT ideology were repeatedly misconstrued by the university and the judge as an attack on LGBT people and the LGBT community, who they framed as a vulnerable group needing protection.
- For example, Vamva criticised a police form with multiple gender options. The judge and the university disapproved of an Internet meme showing parents protecting children with an umbrella from LGBT ideology symbolised by rainbow colours. Vamva referred to the ideology as Satanic and of the devil, which is religious opinion, and ironic, given he was likely alluding to a South African Satanist activist influencer who was among those promoting lgbt ideology. Vamva was accused of sharing a meme accusing the CIA of promoting the woke agenda. While I don’t support this view, the Internet is full of people sharing such conspiracy memes, who suffer no consequences. There are many conspiracy theories attacking Christianity, which are not then framed as hate speech against Christians. Only attacking woke ideology can’t be tolerated.
- Both further blamed Vamva for intransigence in being unwilling to change his views.
- The university used private text messages he had communicated with another student as evidence against him. These would definitely not qualify as hate speech in terms of the Hate Speech and Hate Crimes Act.
- By the logic of the university and the judge, denial of the possibility of changing your gender is delegitimising transgender people. This despite this is not a protected category in the equality clause in the Constitution. Vamva objected to the transgender ideology leading to cutting off the body parts of children. Now, many homosexual people also oppose trans ideology, any sexualisation or gender indoctrination or medical actions to change gender. But the university and judge lump all these people together as the LGBT community. And they don’t seem to be able to accept that one can respect the dignity of a person claiming to have changed gender without accepting their claim.
Recently, I found the founding Act of Rhodes University, which says that the university may not apply any religious test for student admissions. I argue they are applying woke ideology as a religious test that prejudices Christian and other non-woke students.
The November 2025 YouTube clip below about Arthur Vamva’s legal battle against Rhodes University show his disrupted 2022 election speech:
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