IAMHIST’s discriminatory gatekeeping at UCT

The International Association for Media and History (IAMHIST) made it a requirement for Israeli academics attending an IAMHIST conference held at UCT in June that Israeli attendees provide sworn statements confirming they have no ties to the Israel Defence Forces or the broader Israeli military establishment. This was not required of any other nationalities. It appears to be an application of UCT Council’s ‘Gaza’ resolution in 2024 which prohibits UCT academics from engaging with any research group affiliated with the IDF. The resolution is currently the subject of court application by Prof. Adam Mendelsohn to strike the Council resolution down.

The letter can be found here. It was originally published by Politicsweb on 29 June 2025.

The FSU SA is publishing this piece because profound issues of free speech, academic freedom and discrimination that raises.

It is not the FSU SA’s role to deal with the factual merits or demerits of the letter or the litigation, but to focus on the matters of principle raised.

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