The Franklin Thomas Fellowship was established in honour of Franklin Thomas, a former President of the Ford Foundation. The fellowship is funded by monies donated by friends and colleagues of Franklin Thomas on his retirement in 1996, as well as grants from the Ford Foundation.

In the course of his career at the Ford Foundation, Franklin Thomas championed the organisation’s deep‑rooted investment in South Africa’s transition to democracy, backing civil society groups that helped shape a new constitutional order.  His commitment to nurturing a robust, independent judiciary led the Ford Foundation to fund programmes that strengthened legal research and advocacy within the country. In recognition of his lasting impact on South Africa’s constitutional development, the Constitutional Court established the Franklin Thomas Fellowship to support young lawyers who embody his vision of justice and societal transformation to study abroad.

The purpose of the Franklin Thomas fellowship is to provide an opportunity for a South African from a historically disadvantaged background who has clerked of the Constitutional Court of South Africa to study at a well-respected foreign university, usually in the United States, towards a one-year graduate programme leading to a Masters of Law (LLM) degree.

Since the establishment of the Franklin Thomas Fellowship, 25 fellows have successfully completed Masters of Law at various universities in North America, including the University of Notre Dame (10 fellows), the University of Michigan Law School (6 fellows), Duke University (3 fellows), Harvard University (2 fellows), University of Pennsylvania (1 fellow), St Louis Law School (1 fellow), and Georgetown University (2 fellow).

The current Franklin Thomas fellow, Zolile Shude, is undertaking LLM studies at Notre Dame Law School in the USA in the 2024-25 academic year.