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Expelled Rhodes student Yolanda Dyantyi granted leave to appeal

Yolanda Dyantyi's battle to have her expulsion from Rhodes University overturned continues.
Yolanda Dyantyi's battle to have her expulsion from Rhodes University overturned continues.
Image: FILE

Expelled Rhodes University student Yolanda Dyantyi has been granted leave to appeal a high court judgment in terms of which the court refused to set aside the disciplinary conviction that led to her rustication.

Dyantyi was rusticated in 2017 after she was found guilty in a disciplinary hearing of kidnapping, assault, insubordination and defamation during the so-called Rhodes Reference List anti-rape protests in 2016.

She failed in her Grahamstown high court to have both her disciplinary conviction and permanent exclusion from the university set aside.

Judge Zamani Nhlangulela on Thursday granted her leave to appeal his judgment.

A jubilant Dyantyi expressed delight on social media.

“We are going to the Supreme Court of Appeal. Bloemfontein here we come. Thank you to everyone who has supported and held me.”

The EFF last week rallied behind Dyantyi warning the “anger and anguish” of the nation would be unleashed against the university.

Dyantyi’s disciplinary hearing had followed months of protest at the university during which a list was compiled with the names of Rhodes students it claimed had sexually assaulted women. The #RhodesReferenceList was anonymously widely shared on social media. According to court papers, some of the men named on the list were hounded out of their residences by groups of students led by, amongst others, Dyantyi, and some were assaulted, spat on, threatened with necklacing and held against their will.

DispatchLIVE