South African University Dorm Involved In Racist Video To Become Diversity Center

JOHANNESBURG, South Africa

A college dormitory at the center of a video in which Black workers were forced to eat food they believed was tainted with White students’ urine will be shut down next month, university officials said Tuesday.

The Reitz men's dorm in Bloemfontein will reopen later as an institute dedicated to diversity, said Teuns Verschoor, acting rector of the University of the Free State.

The dorm was the setting for a video showing four women and a man on their knees eating food they were told was tainted with urine. The video, which surfaced in February, exposed the lingering deep racial tensions in South Africa.

Four White students accused of involvement denied urinating on the food but face criminal proceedings. Two had already left the university when the video surfaced; two others have apologized and since have left the University of the Free State.

Verschoor said closing the dorm was an “important gesture of reconciliation.”

Wake Forest Joins Schools Dropping SAT Requirement

RALEIGH, N.C.

Wake Forest University will no longer require applicants to take the SAT and ACT exams, boosting a movement to lessen the importance of standardized tests in college admissions.

The Winston-Salem school, which admitted just 38 percent of its 9,000 applicants for this fall, is the latest in a string of colleges that no longer require standardized tests. Officials there say the scores are not the best predictor of academic potential.

Most other colleges that have dropped standardized testing have not been highly selective and accept most, if not all, qualified applicants. The most prominent and selective schools have generally continued to use the tests as one of several admissions criteria.