The applicants, being The Minister of Education and The University of Cape Town, were seeking for the High Court to vary the Trust's provisions in line with the Constitution of South Africa. This after the Bursary Trust had published an advert in which it invited applications for Bursaries for students at the University of Cape Town, stipulating that applicants, in terms of the Will of the deceased, were required to be matriculants, of European descent, male, gentile and with limited or no means.