**Four white students accused of making a racist video in South Africa will face trial, after attempts failed to resolve the matter out of court.**The video, which caused a racial storm in 2008 allegedly shows the four forcing five black cleaners to eat meat soaked in urine.
The Bloemfontein Magistrates court has set down the case for the end of July.
Racism remains a sensitive issue in South Africa, where black people were oppressed under white-minority rule.
The four students RC Malherbe, Johnny Roberts, Schalk van der Merwe and Danie Grobler are said to have made the video in 2007 while living at the university’s now closed Reitz men’s residence.
In the video the campus employees - four women and a man - were also allegedly forced to drink full bottles of beer and perform athletic tasks.
No restoration
During Wednesday’s brief appearance, the state announced that the mediation process between the students and the cleaners had failed and that the court needed to resolve the matter.
The court had previously suggested that the parties go through a process of “restorative justice” - where people are encouraged to reconcile rather than seeking punishment for their aggressors.
No reasons were given for the failure but a report was handed to the court.
Fifteen years after apartheid ended, racism remains a problem in some areas.
The BBC’s Pumza Fihlani in Johannesburg says student residences in the University of Free State in Bloemfontein are still divided along racial lines - reminiscent of South Africa’s apartheid past
The video is believed to have been recorded in protest against the university’s plans to racially integrate students’ residences.
‘Play-acting’
When it surfaced, it caused a national outcry and sparked numerous anti-racism protests.
The final extract of the film was the final nail in the coffin of the university’s image.
It shows a white male urinating on food, and then shouting “Take! Take!” in Afrikaans - apparently forcing the campus employees to eat the dirty food, and causing them to vomit.
The lawyers for two of the students down-played the incident last year, saying the video was “no more than play-acting”.
The trial is to begin on 27 July.