UCT to probe campus support for terror

The University of Cape Town’s (UCT) vice-chancellor has committed to instituting a formal inquiry into staff and students’ support for and engagement with United States (US)-designated terrorist organisations on UCT’s campus.

This is in response to a group of concerned UCT alumni, who wrote to the University of Cape Town Fund (UCT Fund), an independent non-profit organisation that raises money for UCT in the US. They warned that the UCT Fund could face serious legal ramifications in the US because “under US law, material support for designated terrorist groups is a crime, and the university’s failure to intervene or disassociate itself from such activities could be interpreted as complicity”.

Engagement with US-designated terrorist organisations on UCT’s campus goes back to at least March 2023. Student organisations have hosted events where students have been addressed by members of Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and flags of these groups have been displayed on campus and handed out to students.

In addition, members of external terrorism-supporting organisations have been invited onto campus during Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) to address students. Signs supporting Hamas have been displayed openly on campus.

After being alerted to this by the fund, UCT Vice-Chancellor Professor Mosa Moshabela said on Tuesday, 20 May, “This moment demands careful inquiry and a reaffirmation of our commitment to operating within both local and international frameworks of accountability and legality.”

He said the UCT Fund’s board had requested that the university initiate a formal inquiry. “We will approach this matter with the seriousness it deserves,” he wrote, adding that the “regulatory environment in the US and the implications of the allegations necessitate that the university supports the UCT Fund in this regard.”

Moshabela said it was their understanding that in US federal law, being associated with, directly or indirectly, organisations designated as foreign terrorist organisations can carry significant legal consequences. This includes not only the entity itself, but also individuals in positions of governance.”

The UCT Fund told the SA Jewish Report that its board acknowledged the concerns, and that it had “formally requested that UCT initiate a review of the matters raised”. It also resolved on 13 May, “as a precautionary and temporary measure, to suspend certain fund activities, including disbursements, solicitations and events, pending further assessment.”

The UCT Fund operates independently of the university’s governance structures, has no physical or operational presence on campus, and doesn’t set university policy. It operates under US non-profit law, and is governed by a volunteer board. It is recognised by the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) as a tax-exempt organisation.

The funds it raises directly support a wide range of initiatives at UCT, including student scholarships, flagship academic chairs, research infrastructure, and strategic institutional development. Funds are directed toward student financial aid, academic innovation, and capacity-building.

All this could now be at risk because UCT allows student and staff support for and engagement with US-sanctioned terrorist organisations on campus. The alumni called on the UCT Fund to “ensure that you are taking all necessary steps to prevent the university from engaging with members of terror organisations sanctioned in the US”, even though these organisations aren’t designated terrorists by South Africa.

Failing to do so “may negatively affect your eligibility for continued tax-exempt status in the US”, they wrote. “The IRS has already shown that it will not tolerate providing generous tax benefits to organisations that support terrorism.”

Despite this, UCT continues to double down on its anti-Israel resolutions adopted in June 2024. Professor Adam Mendelsohn, the director of the Kaplan Centre for Jewish Studies at UCT, took the university to court last year, asking for the resolutions to be set aside because UCT adopted them without following its own processes, and they curtail research. Mendelsohn also suggested that these resolutions could lead to loss of funding.

In a recently submitted answering affidavit, UCT Council Chairperson Norman Arendse said that the resolution banning UCT academics from interacting with Israelis who have served in the Israel Defence Forces (IDF) applied only to individuals and institutions currently involved in the IDF. However, that wasn’t what was written in the resolution.

He also doubled down on why he believed UCT needed to reject the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, saying rejecting it would allow for “legitimate criticism” of Israel.

In early May, a separate letter from 180 UCT alumni to UCT leadership, called on them to prioritise the university’s financial future over its anti-Israel resolutions. Last week, UCT’s human resources department told staff that “the university is no longer in a [financial] position to provide performance bonuses and merit awards for 2025”.

In the letter to the UCT Fund, the alumni noted that in October 2024, Moshabela and the UCT executive elected to “put on hold” the vice-chancellor’s open lecture, because “the lecture would have had a polarising effect on campus”. This was supposedly because the speaker, Claudius Senst, chief executive of the newspaper Bild and chief operating officer of its parent company, Axel Springer, was believed to support Israel, although this was never confirmed. In contrast, the letter said, “when it came to hosting Hamas and Hezbollah representatives earlier in that year, the UCT executive failed to exercise such a discretion or to take responsibility”.

UCT spokesperson Elijah Moholola said UCT had engaged with students who invited speakers from the external organisation Cape Town Intifada onto campus for IAW 2025, “and it was confirmed that no such speakers were part of the programme”.

Sara Gon, the director of the Free Speech Union of South Africa, said that while free speech on campus is paramount, “universities have a right and even an obligation to protect students from harassment, threats, or worse”. She says charges should be laid where criminal behaviour is observed, including verbal abuse, threats, or intimidation. “Here is where management plays an important role, since victims are unlikely to lay charges for fear of further intimidation.”

South African Zionist Federation spokesperson Rolene Marks says her organisation “unequivocally condemns UCT’s transformation into a safe haven for US-sanctioned terrorist propaganda”.

“UCT has crossed into active complicity with extremism”, Marks said, which “exposes an institutional rot that treats terrorism as legitimate campus activism.”

UCT’s “selective outrage” is “damning,” says Marks. “While cancelling ‘polarising’ lectures, it amplifies organisations responsible for murder and kidnapping.” This is “calculated enablement that endangers Jewish students and violates US counter-terrorism laws”.

UCT ought to ban all terror-affiliated groups immediately; implement zero-tolerance policies against extremist rhetoric; and protect Jewish students from this orchestrated campaign, Marks said. “The choice is clear: uphold civilised values or remain complicit in terrorism’s campus foothold.”

The alumni concluded by asking that UCT authorities “ensure a UCT campus that is safe for all students and open to engagement that isn’t encroached upon by internationally-recognised voices of terrorism and calls for violent intifada against Jews”.