Bill allowing gender segregation in graduate courses passes 1st Knesset vote
Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech lauds legislation as ‘true equality,’ while Labor MK Merav Michaeli decries it as promoting ‘discrimination against women’
Sam Sokol is the Times of Israel's political correspondent. He was previously a reporter for the Jerusalem Post, Jewish Telegraphic Agency and Haaretz. He is the author of "Putin’s Hybrid War and the Jews"
The Knesset voted 48-40 on Monday night in favor of a bill, in its first reading, legalizing gender-segregated study tracks, on religious grounds, for master’s and doctoral degrees at Israeli universities.
According to the bill’s explanatory notes, such tracks are currently legally permitted only for undergraduate degrees, and the legislation stipulates that creating separate tracks for men and women studying for graduate degrees will not be considered discriminatory.
“This is to allow even those who, due to their religious beliefs, are prevented from participating in mixed academic studies to study for advanced degrees in a wider variety of fields,” the bill says.
Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech welcomed the vote advancing the legislation, calling it a “revolution in academia.”
“I ask that institutions be allowed, at their discretion, to reach out to a large community of people — a community that wants to learn, contribute and advance, but not at the expense of its values. True equality, for everyone,” she tweeted.
Labor MK Merav Michaeli slammed the law as discriminatory.
“Gender segregation for men in academia, gender segregation for men at natural springs, gender segregation for men in the military, blocking Haredi women from representation in the Knesset for the men in the Knesset and in the government,” Michaeli tweeted on Monday. “There is no such thing as separate but equal. Segregation is discrimination and racism against women. [This is] a government of segregation and neglect.”
In 2021, the High Court of Justice upheld the Council for Higher Education’s policy of allowing gender-segregated college courses in order to encourage the integration of ultra-Orthodox students, but prohibited the practice of barring female lecturers from teaching in male-only courses.
Writing for the majority, High Court Justice Hanan Melcer argued at the time that he did not accept “the claim that any gender segregation in universities and colleges violates the fundamental right to equality.”
“Most students studying in gender-segregated tracks choose to do so out of their own free will, in accordance with their religious views that support gender segregation as a way of life,” he wrote.
Any drawbacks, Melcer wrote, are ultimately “worth it for the purpose of integrating the ultra-Orthodox population into academia.”
The issue of state-sanctioned gender-segregated events and locations has long been a hot-button issue in Israel, with legal and political fights centering on such segregation in public transportation, parks, concerts, swimming pools and IDF combat units.
The Times of Israel Community.