More than 75% of University of Cape Town students staying in residence are black‚ vice-chancellor Max Price said on Wednesday. Summarising UCT’s progress in resolving the accommodation shortage that has been the focus of recent protests on campus led by the Rhodes Must Fall movement‚ Price said management had been “very supportive and tolerant of peaceful protest”.“The university is a place for discussion and debate and we jealously guard that. We draw the line at criminality and violence and that is what has happened last night‚ and that’s why we have acted firmly and strongly.”He was referring to the petrol bombing of his office and the burning of several artworks by protesters. Eight people were arrested‚ six of them students.Responding to claims that black students had been excluded from housing on campus‚ Price said: “The #RhodesMustFall lobby claims this issue is about student housing and in particular about black students not being given housing in residence in the university‚ and that white students have been given preference.“That is completely wrong. Firstly‚ if you just look at the figures: we have around 6600 beds in our residences and over 75% of them are allocated and currently occupied by black students‚ so the overwhelming majority is black students. Our residence admissions policy gives strong preference‚ very strong preference‚ to students on financial aid‚ because in general residence accommodation is a bit cheaper than [off-campus] private accommodation. Also‚ it gives preference to students who are very young‚ if they’re not yet 18‚ for example. And it gives preference to people who come from outside of Cape Town because clearly it’s more difficult for them.“We have only got accommodation for about a quarter of our students; we have 27 000 students‚ [and 6 600] beds. So we cannot accommodate them all. We assist them by trying to find them off-campus accommodation and we have found off campus accommodation for over 2 000 students.“And we have been able to find accommodation for everyone who applied for accommodation and who was offered accommodation.“There are some people who did not apply and arrived [at the residence office]; or some people who applied and were told we do not have accommodation and who have not yet been accommodated; and those are the students we have in temporary accommodation while we are helping them to look for accommodation. There are about 50 students now in temporary accommodation. We intend to find accommodation for them too.“Our difficulty in finding accommodation has largely been aggravated by the #RhodesMustFall protests because they invaded and shut down our residence offices for three days during the last week and this created additional complications.Price said the campus was open and lectures were continuing.“The mess has largely been cleared up. Those we have identified as students [who were involved in illegal behaviour] have been suspended. In a previous statement I said eight people were suspended. Two of them turned not to be registered this year so six have been suspended.”“We have laid charges with the police as well as disciplinary charges for the acts of criminality.”..