The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) decision to adopt two resolutions on Israel’s war on Gaza has sparked a controversy over the limits of academic freedom and the role of private donors in shaping university policies. The institution lost 250 million rand ($15.2m) in donor funding after adopting these resolutions, which were demanded by the Donald Gordon Foundation.
The foundation had withdrawn its remaining funding under a 200 million rand ($12.1m), 10-year commitment to a neuroscience institute at UCT. Other benefactors withheld another 50 million rand ($3m), including 15 million rand ($910,000) annually for bursaries. The Donald Gordon Foundation is built on the financial-services company Liberty Life, which was established in 1957 under apartheid as a means of accumulating wealth from Black dispossession.
The foundation’s growth did not take place alongside apartheid’s racial order but within an economy whose incomes, assets and capacity to invest had been deliberately organized along racial lines. Apartheid-era wealth is now being used to penalize those who are already disadvantaged, including Palestinians facing land theft, settler violence, homelessness, and enforced poverty.
The University of Cape Town has a long history of solidarity with the Palestinian people, having provided significant support for their cause in recent years. However, UCT’s decision to adopt the Donald Gordon Foundation’s definition of anti-Semitism was seen as an attempt by private donors to shape academic speech and action. The foundation insisted that UCT adopt its 2016 International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition, which conflates opposition to Zionism or Israeli policy with anti-Jewish hatred.
UCT has rejected this private donor veto, stating that the decision was not simply a dispute over a donation but an attempt to use private wealth accumulated within an apartheid economy to determine the political and intellectual boundaries of a South African university. The foundation’s leverage comes from Donald Gordon’s fortune, built through Liberty Life under apartheid.
The study by 2024 estimated that 45 percent of white adults possess at least 250,000 rand ($15,200) in inheritable assets, compared with just three percent of Black adults. This enduring injustice deepens UCT’s solidarity with Palestinians confronting land theft, settler violence, homelessness and enforced poverty.
The University of Cape Town is now facing a significant challenge to its commitment to academic freedom and social justice. The loss of 250 million rand ($15.2m) in donor funding has placed an additional burden on Black students, young people from families denied comparable assets through colonialism and white minority rule. This highlights the need for universities like UCT to recognize the destruction of education as an instrument of domination and to take a stand against oppression.
Source: Al Jazeera
Based on reporting from Al Jazeera.
