University of Cape Town loses $15.2m in donor funding over Gaza resolutions

The University of Cape Town (UCT) faces a significant financial blow, losing 250 million rand ($15.2 million) in donor funding after adopting resolutions concerning Israel's war on Gaza. Vice-Chancellor Mosa Moshabela revealed the losses to Parliament in June, detailing that the Donald Gordon Foundation had rescinded the remaining 200 million rand ($12.1 million) of a 10-year commitment to a neuroscience institute. Additionally, other benefactors withheld 50 million rand ($3 million), including annual funding for bursaries.

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The University of Cape Town (UCT) has lost 250 million rand ($15.2m) in donor funding after adopting two resolutions on Israel’s war on Gaza.

These financial repercussions strike a nation grappling with extreme inequality, where UCT's student debt surpassed one billion rand ($60.7 million) by December 2025, with many students still facing registration holds. For poor Black families in South Africa, higher education remains largely inaccessible without public assistance and private bursaries, a direct consequence of apartheid's systemic denial of land, income, schooling, and inherited assets that historically benefited white access to learning.

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This blow lands in a country ranked by the World Bank as the world’s most unequal.

The contentious resolutions passed by UCT called for a ceasefire in Gaza, humanitarian aid, the return of captives, and the reconstruction of the region's education system. A second resolution barred academics from collaborating with research groups affiliated with the Israeli military. Crucially, these measures did not target individuals based on their identity, and UCT had not yet implemented the research restriction.

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As a graduate of UCT, I understand what the institution’s resources and principles mean to students who enter it carrying the weight of these inequalities. But nothing in its progressive resolutions justifies such harsh and callous retaliation.

The dispute escalated when the Donald Gordon Foundation reportedly conditioned its support on UCT adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of anti-Semitism. UCT instead endorsed the Jerusalem Declaration, a scholarly framework that condemns anti-Semitism while protecting criticism of Israel and advocacy for Palestinian rights. The university's rejection of the foundation's demand is framed as a defense against private wealth, accumulated under apartheid, dictating the boundaries of academic freedom and discourse.

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The first of the contentious resolutions demanded a ceasefire, humanitarian assistance, the return of captives and the reconstruction of Gaza’s shattered education system. Equally principled, the second barred UCT academics from relations with any research group or network whose authors were affiliated with the Israeli military or the broader Israeli military establishment.