If you see an elegant figure walking thoughtfully across the Stellenbosch University (SU) campus – composed, alert, quietly resolute – it may well be Prof Tshepo Madlingozi, newly appointed extraordinary professor at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ). His bearing carries both gravity and warmth. The hope he embodies is not an abstract sentiment; it’s an obligation rooted in his name, he says.

“In our culture, the name you’ve been given becomes your commitment,” he reflects. “Tshepo means hope. I make the choice all the time to be critically optimistic. Madlingozi means ‘one who eats danger’. To me it means I can overcome anything.”

Madlingozi’s appointment formalises a relationship that has unfolded over years, one grounded in intellectual engagement, principled critique and a shared commitment to reckoning with South Africa’s history while imagining its future.

The esteemed academic and activist’s first encounter with SU came when Prof Sandra Liebenberg invited him, still early in his career, to a conference on transformative constitutionalism. He presented a sharply critical reading of constitutional practice. The reception surprised him. “They really welcomed my very critical take,” he recalls. Later, while finalising his master’s degree in sociology, he spent more than a month at STIAS (the Stellenbosch Institute for Advanced Study). It was a formative period of writing and reflection, shared with scholars including former Chief Justice Arthur Chaskalson.

For Madlingozi, the decision to immerse himself in Stellenbosch was deliberate. SU occupies a singular place in South Africa’s history, he says, referencing its historical association with apartheid ideology. Yet he was drawn by what he perceived as a serious institutional effort at self-examination. “Over recent years, SU has taken a critical reflection of itself and came up with a new vision, with people saying we need to be serious and truthful about our history, and we need to be serious about our contribution going forward. I want to be a part of moving forward together.” 

The establishment of centres such as the CSJ, the Centre for the Study of the Afterlife of Violence and the Reparative Quest (AVReQ), and the Stellenbosch Centre of Critical and Creative Thought signalled to him an intent to translate reflection into sustained intellectual work and social impact.

A year of anniversaries and reckoning

Madlingozi’s professorship begins in a year dense with symbolic weight: three decades since the adoption of the Constitution; three decades since the launch of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC); and three decades since the adoption of the macro-economic Growth, Employment and Redistribution (GEAR) policy.

“For me, it’s a happy coincidence that we are marking the most significant year in South Africa’s recent history as I start my work at the CSJ,” he says. The Constitution articulated a vision of a transformed society. The TRC sought reconciliation and healing. GEAR introduced a macro-economic turn whose consequences remain contested.

He sees these anniversaries as an invitation to what he calls “critical bifocal reflection” – looking back with honesty and forward with imagination. “Let’s be honest about colonisation, about apartheid, about corruption and about the high level of crime and gender-based violence,” he says. Yet retrospection alone is insufficient. “The critical task is to come up with a new vision of a society. It’s not enough to say we want to be a non-racial, non-sexist society. What does that mean?”

South Africa, he argues, is experiencing both strain and possibility. Structural racism and racial tension persist. Inequality is visible in stark spatial divides, including those that mark Stellenbosch and its surrounding communities. Coalition politics has ushered in uncertainty. “Academics and activists are forced to think differently. The work ahead demands intellectual and spiritual honesty.”

Horizontal justice in a fractured world

At the South African Human Rights Commission, where President Cyril Ramaphosa appointed him as a full-time Commissioner in 2024, Madlingozi leads work on anti-racism, education and equality. He chairs the Commission’s Legal Committee and oversees strategic litigation, policy reform and public dialogue. Before joining the Commission, he was the Director of the Centre for Applied Legal Studies (CALS) – a law clinic and research centre – at the University of the Witwatersrand and an associate professor at the university’s School of Law, where he taught social justice and human rights.

At the CSJ, he intends to deepen a complementary line of inquiry: the horizontal application of the Constitution. “All of us have been focused on the vertical application of the Constitution in terms of holding the state accountable,” he notes. “But big business and prominent private actors are sometimes even more powerful than the state.”

Without accountability that extends to corporations that pollute, displace communities or perpetuate economic injustice, constitutional promises remain thin. The same applies to large technology companies that enable the spread of misinformation. Social justice must be horizontal as well as vertical, he argues.

This emphasis aligns closely with the CSJ’s mandate to combine rigorous scholarship with public impact. Madlingozi’s appointment strengthens postgraduate supervision, interdisciplinary collaboration and policy-engaged research within the Faculty of Law.

Intergenerational dialogue and moral responsibility

Madlingozi is particularly concerned about the distance between generations. “We are often dismissive towards young people,” he says. Older activists, he argues, have failed to create spaces where mistakes and lessons can be shared honestly. About 15 years ago, he established “Tshepo’s Legal Shebeen” – a recurring forum where students debate law and justice in an accessible setting.

He does not romanticise youth. Some young people underestimate the depth of South Africa’s historical inheritance, he says. Change, after centuries of colonialism and apartheid, will take time. Yet impatience often reflects disillusionment. Corruption, both economic and sexual, has eroded trust. Environmental degradation and unchecked materialism threaten the future.

“We are transferring intergenerational prejudice and racism to our children,” he warns, invoking Prof Jonathan Jansen’s phrase “knowledge in the blood”. Without deliberate work of reconciliation and decolonisation, prejudice is passed forward.

For educators the responsibility is heightened, he believes. In an era of rage-bait and misinformation, the cultivation of integrity is essential.

What sustains him is disarmingly simple: his name, his spirituality, his family, and the practice of walking. He quotes the adage “We do not inherit the earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children”, when he speaks of his hopes and dreams for his six-year-old son. He walks for hours through Stellenbosch’s tree-lined avenues. Yoga and meditation also anchor him.

Hope, in his vocabulary, is not naive. It is disciplined. It is chosen daily. And at a university confronting both its history and its responsibilities, it is a fitting companion.

• The Director of the CSJ, Prof Thuli Madonsela said she is overjoyed Prof Madlingozi has accepted the nomination as Extraordinary Professor at the Faculty of Law, and to be associated with the CSJ in particular. “Prof Madlingozi is recognised as an authoritative voice on social justice, human rights and transformative constitutionalism and is globally recognised for his academic expertise, prestige and distinct intellectual capacity. The CSJ, the Law Faculty and SU in general stands to benefit immensely from a person of his calibre particularly in diversifying the academic thoughts and driving research in service of society.”