The Knesset gave final approval overnight Wednesday to legislation allowing gender-segregated classes in master’s and doctoral programs, despite warnings that the measure could exclude women, weaken academic standards and harm the quality of medical training.
The bill, introduced by Otzma Yehudit lawmaker Limor Son Har-Melech, passed its second and third readings by 52 votes to 43.
Haredi students at a college. Archive
(Photo: Courtesy of the Jerusalem Haredi College)
The amendment to the Student Rights Law permits academic institutions to establish gender-separated tracks for advanced degrees. Segregation will be allowed only inside classrooms, not in the campus’s public spaces.
The programs will not be established automatically: participation must remain voluntary, and each institution will need specific approval from the Council for Higher Education before opening a gender-segregated track.
Supporters argue that the measure will remove barriers facing religious and Haredi students and allow more members of those communities to pursue higher education. Opponents, however, warn that it could institutionalize the exclusion of women, undermine equality and damage the quality of teaching and research.
Until now, gender-separated academic tracks have operated primarily in undergraduate programs under special arrangements intended to integrate Haredi students into higher education.
Son Har-Melech said the expansion would help women from communities that have not previously received adequate opportunities for advancement.
Roy Assaf, head of the Prime Minister’s Office authority for the socioeconomic development of the ultra-Orthodox community, supported the legislation, saying it would increase Haredi women’s earning potential and open professional opportunities.
Ron Kutin, a representative of the Council for Higher Education, said the Haredi community remains significantly underrepresented in academia, with only 13% holding academic qualifications compared with 46% of the general population.
Opposition lawmakers and the Association of University Heads strongly opposed the legislation, warning that expanding gender segregation could deepen the separation of men and women in academic and public life and lead to the creation of “second-class degrees.”
Critics argue that special arrangements may be justified in undergraduate programs for Haredi students who enter higher education without having studied core subjects, but that no similar justification exists for advanced degrees centered on research and laboratory work.
They also warned that duplicating classes, faculty and facilities would create substantial financial and logistical burdens.
“There is serious concern that segregation will lead to disparities in academic standards, particularly in programs intended exclusively for women,” opponents said.
They warned that inferior training in health care and therapeutic professions could ultimately harm the public. Critics also predicted that universities would eventually seek approval for segregated programs despite their objections because advanced degrees generate significant revenue.
In an interview with ynet studio Thursday morning, Son Har-Melech insisted that the legislation should be referred to by its formal name, the Student Rights Law amendment on segregation and advanced degrees. “Sometimes people distort its name to promote a particular agenda,” she said.
Son Har-Melech said hundreds of women had urged her to advance the amendment. “I was simply the conduit,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve received this many appeals on any other issue. There is a genuine need. My only concern is for women who want to pursue higher education, advance and reach positions of influence, but are currently held back by a glass ceiling,” she said.
“These are women who studied the core curriculum and completed everything required of them. They can earn a bachelor’s degree, but are then blocked from pursuing master’s and doctoral degrees.”
Responding to warnings that the law could undermine academic standards, Son Har-Melech argued that gender-segregated undergraduate programs had produced strong academic results and helped integrate more students into higher education.
She accused the country’s judicial and academic establishments of opposing the advancement of Haredi women, saying they “do not want to see them among the ranks of female professors.”
Ahead of the final votes, the deans of Israel’s nine medical schools sent lawmakers a strongly worded letter warning that applying the legislation to medicine and health professions could severely damage the quality of care and endanger public health.
The deans said the law would make an instructor’s gender, rather than professional expertise, a determining factor in medical education. “Instead of the best male or female expert teaching the students, gender will become the deciding factor,” they wrote. “Ask yourselves what you would want if a family member required surgery: Would you want the best professional to perform it, or a surgeon of the ‘correct’ gender?”
Na’amat Chairwoman Hagit Pe’er condemned the law as “another nail in the coffin of women’s rights in Israel.”
“This is a moral and social outrage, and it is shameful that it has now entered Israel’s law books,” Pe’er said. She accused the government of pushing through a series of divisive measures before the Knesset’s possible dissolution, including legislation on military exemptions, protections for draft dodgers, media restrictions and gender segregation.
“It will not end there,” she warned. “We are already seeing growing initiatives to separate men and women in public spaces, on sidewalks in Bnei Brak today and perhaps on buses, in shopping malls and elsewhere tomorrow.”
“This is not only a severe blow to women,” she added. “It is a devastating blow to Israeli academic excellence.”