Last year, the Council of the University of Cape Town (UCT) took a decision that, by its own assessment, is likely to result in losses exceeding half a billion rand. Yes, that’s with a “B.”

These losses will likely impact multiple areas of university life, including the cancellation of the creation of a major new medical facility, UCT’s participation in international research collaborations, and, worryingly for a university that prides itself on driving a “transformation” agenda, the potential loss of access to at least 50 bursaries for underprivileged students.

Understandably, the decision has been enormously controversial, met with immediate opposition and has now led members of the faculty to take the university to court. Given the eye-watering sums involved and the general cash-strapped state of South African universities, one might have expected the administration to use the opportunity to seek a negotiated resolution.

No such luck, as from Thursday 23rd October UCT intends to double down, spending yet more millions defending its decision.

Already, its administrative and governance processes are under scrutiny. Reports suggest that council members who voted on the resolution were not even given access to the full report outlining its potential impact on the university community.

What is so vital that UCT is willing to jeopardize its reputation, academic standing, and key infrastructure projects? The answer is a depressing but perhaps predictable: a boycott of resolution against Israel.

Unlike other universities in South Africa UCT doesn’t have any institutional ties to Israeli universities, so it the council has gone further and deliberately targeted the work of its own academics.

Bars any collaboration

Essentially it bars its researchers from any collaboration with people or institutions linked to the Israel Defense Forces. Given that Israel practices near universal conscription, virtually every academic has served in the army, or at least works in an institute that accommodates those who have.

The policy therefore acts as a backdoor mechanism to undermine the very foundation of a university, the free exchange of knowledge, and the pursuit of research by banning research with the only democracy in the Middle East.

Anti-Israel activists appear desperate to sever any ties, perhaps because, according to their own research data, UCT accounts for the largest portion of individual academic collaborations with Israelis academics of any university in South Africa, second only to the University of the Witwatersrand.

Supporters of the boycott claim that it is a response to Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza. But there is nothing new about this campaign at UCT. In 2018, a similar resolution was rejected by the council. This is not about current events, it’s an ideological obsession.

A small but extreme faction within the professoriate, allied with elements of the student representative council, most recently run by the Economic Freedom Fighters, has hijacked the research and teaching agenda of Africa’s top university and the futures of talented young South Africans with it.

Not freedom of speech

Contrary to defenders of the resolution, this issue has nothing to do with freedom of speech. Many universities around the world have issued statements on the war against Hamas. UCT itself has already picked a side in the war and runs programs bringing Gazan medical students to South Africa and puts money towards projects with Palestinian institutions, though it remains unclear how these are funded or how South African students benefit.

The real issue is not UCT’s stance on the conflict, but its insistence on excluding Israeli academics, often the most peace-oriented individuals in Israeli society, many of whom were victims of Hamas on 7 October.

Nor is the UCT a brave defender of human rights. In the United States, UCT’s fund recently had to investigate after terrorist organizations, including Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis, were hosted on campus to engage with students.

UCT also hosts a so-called Confucius Institute, an arm of the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda apparatus masquerading as cultural education.

The university is also currently exploring adding new partnership institutions from Iran and Russia. All this while Israeli academics are excluded from participating on the campus.

German alumni

Nor is this just affecting Israel, a German UCT alumni was barred from speaking because the media outlet he was connected to was deemed “too pro-Israel” by campus mobs. The UCT impact report also noted that the university’s actions against Israel have the potential to sever support from the United States, indeed millions of rands have been withdrawn from the university by the Trump Administration. In such an antisemitic environment Jewish students have been leaving in growing numbers.

Nor UCT is not alone. The University of Johannesburg (UJ) hosts its own Chinese Communist Party state-linked centre and recently inaugurated the Qatar-South Africa Centre for Peace and Intercultural Understanding (CPIU) as a convenient vehicle for an authoritarian regime to launder its foreign policy objectives through South African academia.

Qatari cheque writing influence on western academia has been noted and credited with helping to ignite the chaos on US campuses after 7 October. Despite this UJ has found it too controversial to host a clean water research program with an Israel university.

In short, South Africa’s leading universities seem increasingly comfortable aligning with authoritarian powers while posturing as champions of justice and freedom.

Their boycotts may target Israel, but their real casualty is the principle of open, independent, and truly global scholarship and futures of South African students.