From big bet to big betrayal: Who really controls Check Feeney’s legacy?

16 JUL 2026, 07:20

9 min read

Billionaire Chuck Feeney is lauded for his ‘giving while living’ philanthropic philosophy and lifelong frugality. Less than three years after his death, is his ambition for a lasting, equitable legacy being tainted by a duplicitous association with Cecil John Rhodes? 

Feeney founded Atlantic Philanthropies in 1982 which gave over $8 billion in grants until its dissolution in 2020. Among the final grants given were the so-called “big bets” which included establishing the Atlantic Institute and seven global Equity programmes addressing racial, social, economic and health inequalities. Two of these programmes include bases in South Africa; the Atlantic Fellows for Health Equity in South Africa programme and the Atlantic Fellows for Racial Equity programme.

From the onset, the relationship between Rhodes Trust, based in Oxford, UK, and the Atlantic Institute, has typically been portrayed to Fellows and those in the Fellowship community as superficial - that of a tenant and landlord - an institution providing space for another to headquarter themselves, with Rhodes Trust having no governance or operational influence on the Atlantic Institute matters.

While the seven programmes are nominally independent, the Atlantic Institute acts as a sort of mothership with overall control of the Atlantic Fellowship brand and holds organising and connecting stewardship of over 1000 Fellows from more than 90 countries around the world, working together for greater equity. Every Fellow automatically graduates into a member of the Atlantic Institute as part of their Fellowship. The Atlantic Institute is therefore made up of Fellows whose histories have been shaped by the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes and British colonialism. Most Fellows come from countries where the social, political and economic effects of colonial rule continue to influence present day realities.

Throughout the years, Fellows have raised questions around the politics of how an institution like Atlantic Institute, that has built its brand and organised its programming on equity and justice, could hold such a friendly relationship with an institution burdened by its connection to colonialist Cecil John Rhodes and thereby let itself become implicated in the inequitable and unjust conditions resulting from colonialism. This has been especially concerning when many of the Atlantic Fellowships are supposed to be working directly to address these colonial architectures within their local contexts. 

Fellow-led discourse and questioning has taken various forms ranging from dialogue all the way to organised protests during convenings which the Atlantic Institute would often host at Rhodes House in Oxford. This relationship has been questioned and critiqued for almost as long as the Fellowships have existed. 

There is now growing mobilisation and calls for Atlantic Institute to divest from institutions like Barclays Bank because of their complicity with an ongoing genocide, which has once again brought the nature of the relationship with Rhodes Trust into the spotlight. These conversations have revealed a deeper dynamic, highlighting the inability of Atlantic Institute to make important governance decisions without the input or approval of the Rhodes Trust. Clearly the relationship is far deeper and closer than institutions merely connected by the physical space they share. 

In fact, during the Atlantic Institute’s 2026 strategic review and planning process, it was revealed that the Atlantic Institute is fully controlled by Rhodes Trust in the UK. Over 1000 equity, equality and justice-minded Fellows now find themselves indelibly tarnished by the association with Cecil John Rhodes. This is both a moral and ethical dilemma for the Atlantic Institute, because the lack of transparency completely compromises the very Fellows they are accountable to. This association proves deeply disturbing for many Fellows, some of whom were part of the Rhodes Must Fall Movement. In 2015, the Rhodes Must Fall movement in South Africa started with the call for the removal of the statue of Cecil John Rhodes and challenged the enduring legacy of colonialism in higher education, and beyond. 

“I would never have applied for the Fellowship if I had known it was part of Rhodes, that is not who I am, I feel tricked, defrauded.” – Atlantic Fellow

Additionally, the lack of transparency exposes the Institute's apparent disregard for the agency of Fellows and their right to make decisions on the type of institutions they will align their efforts to build just and equitable futures through. This act in itself reflects colonial behaviour that parallels the legacy of Cecil John Rhodes and colonial projects, where the agency and right to choice is completely stripped for the benefit of Empire. Instead, Fellows are given the illusion of choice and are made complicit in the laundering of reputations.

As of May 2026, the Atlantic Institute website still refers to The Rhodes Trust as host, and indeed, this in itself is problematic given the ethical gulf between the stated ambitions of the Atlantic Institute and the legacy of Rhodes. However, the reality is far worse: The Rhodes Trust exercises full organisational and financial control of the Institute, a fact which some programme leaderships claim to have been unaware of, placing the entire Fellowship community into a moral and ethical bind.

This ethical dilemma only grows as, since 2023, the Atlantic Fellows for Palestine group has been highlighting significant governance issues as part of their efforts to ensure the Institute’s funding is ethically invested. The fact of the matter is: the Institute currently has £80 million invested in Barclays Bank. Barclays is a primary dealer of Israeli war bonds, one of only seven dealers identified globally and the only one in the UK. In February 2024, Israeli Ministry of Finance officials confirmed the country would need to sell a near-record amount of bonds specifically to continue financing its genocidal mission. By underwriting and bringing Israel’s “war bonds” to market, Barclays enables Israel to continue its mass killings in Gaza, a grave injustice against humanity that highlights the risks of philanthropic gambles. 

Barclays are also investors and/or creditors in business enterprises listed by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) as involved in illegal settlement activities. In fact, they were found to be number 3 in Europe in providing loans and underwriting services from 2021 to 2024 to enterprises listed by OHCHR. They have substantial shareholdings and provide loans and financial services to at least nine companies known to be producing weapons and military technology sold to Israel and used against Palestinians.

“In my opinion, Barclays empowers Israel’s militarised repression of Palestinians and the Atlantic Institute’s investment in Barclays enables this. Economic empowerment of a crime is a contribution to the crime. There is a straight-line relationship between Israel’s crime of genocide and the Institute’s money. And they have made Fellows complicit by association too.” – Atlantic Fellow  

To make the situation worse, one of Barclays’ biggest shareholdings is in BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest arms producers. Weapons containing components manufactured by BAE Systems have been used in Israel’s bombardments of Gaza. BAE Systems cooperated with Lockheed Martin to develop F-35 fighter jets sold to Israel and produce drones used to maintain the naval siege of Gaza. The F35s drop 2000Ib bombs onto residential buildings, hospitals and tents. 

Boeing, another of the world’s largest arms manufacturers and also supported by Barclays, was implicated by Amnesty International in Israeli war crimes in Gaza. In 2023, South Africa initiated proceedings against Israel at the International Court of Justice, alleging violations of the Genocide Convention.

Letters, meetings, townhalls, and efforts by Fellows to divest from Barclays and draft an ethical investment policy have been met with hostility, delay and obfuscation. The Atlantic Institute’s governing board won’t or perhaps cannot divest its millions from Barclays – a bank subject to a significant Anti-Apartheid Movement campaign due to its links to apartheid in South Africa. Simultaneously, and despite growing concerns raised by Fellows about the perpetuation of racial and colonial power structures, the Institute’s recent draft strategic plan suggests that it should do more to celebrate and leverage the relationship with The Rhodes Trust and Oxford. 

“The way the Institute committed to staying glued to Barclays and Rhodes was baffling until we found out that all the key decisions are made by Rhodes Trust. What is the purpose of the Institute’s board if the decisions are made elsewhere, what actually is this organisation that we’ve become part of?” – Atlantic Fellow 

Fellows continue to make calls that the Atlantic Institute must, as an extension of its reflective and strategic review, ask themselves what does it mean to claim equity and justice as principles through which you want to see in the world, while at the same time using the language of neutrality while continuing to invest in institutions enabling genocide. Where is the justice in that? The Institute should reflect on how its dishonesty about its relationship to Rhodes Trust reproduces very harmful, colonial patterns that devalue people’s agency and attempt to cleanse the reputations of institutions like Rhodes, refusing to take stark and honest reckoning with their legacy. These legacies, in all truth, produced some of the most unjust and inequitable societies the Atlantic Institute itself identifies as sites of deep social fracture, violence, and exclusion - conditions inseparable from the very legacies Rhodes Trust hesitates to confront honestly. 

During his lifetime, Chuck Feeney invested heavily in peace initiatives in Ireland and emphasised respect for human dignity. It is hard to imagine that he would have wanted his legacy to include £80 million invested in empowering genocide. The question then, is what will Atlantic Fellows and their respective programmes do to extricate themselves from this unseemly association? Justice and Equity are not just words to describe a world we want to live in; they are DOING words! They require action like divesting from institutions that value profit over human lives. They require transparency and truth and the right for Fellows and those who choose to enter the Atlantic community, to do so with a full awareness of who and what the institution is. 

Chuck Feeney’s memory and legacy deserve more! 

Are we betting on a better tomorrow or are we being betrayed in the here and now? It all depends on who really controls the legacy.

-Concerned Atlantic Fellows