5 members of top education authority quit over new gender segregation law

Five members of Israel’s Council for Higher Education quit over a law passed last week to expand gender segregation in higher education by permitting universities and colleges to offer segregated master’s and doctoral degree programs, subject to approval by the top authority.

The law constitutes an “unprecedented intervention in the independence of the council” and “a fundamental change in the character of the tertiary education system in Israel,” the resigning members of the authority write in a letter to Education Minister Yoav Kisch and President Isaac Herzog.

They say the law harms “academic freedom, equality, excellence and pluralism,” which they say are fundamental values of the tertiary education system in Israel.

The members say continuing to serve on the council would “legitimize moves that contradict the values ​​for which we were asked to serve.”

The council is meant to have no fewer than 19 and no more than 25 members.

The law builds upon a 2021 High Court ruling that upheld the Council for Higher Education’s policy permitting limited and specific gender-segregated undergraduate programs aimed at integrating ultra-Orthodox students into higher education and, ultimately, the workforce.

The court stressed that the arrangement was specifically intended for the Haredi community and imposed safeguards, including limiting segregation to classrooms in mixed institutions and prohibiting discrimination against female lecturers.

The new legislation extends that framework to master’s and doctoral programs and makes it available to all students, not only the Haredi community, while a proposed amendment by Shas MK Yossi Taieb to expand segregation to additional areas of campuses was rejected.

Proponents frame the law as increasing educational opportunities for religious women, with the legislation’s sponsor Otzma Yehudit MK Limor Son Har-Melech arguing the legislation will “advance women from sectors that have not received the opportunities they deserve,” while committee chair and Religious Zionism Zvi Sukkot has said it would “expand freedom of choice.”

Ariela Karmel contributed to this report.