Knesset passes school anti-discrimination bill

The Knesset plenum passes law banning all forms of discrimination in school system based on the country of origin of a student, parents.

By BEN HARTMAN
Religious school girls 311 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Religious school girls 311
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
The Knesset plenum passed a bill late Monday night banning all forms of discrimination in the school system based on the country of origin of a student or their parents.
“In light of numerous incidents of both covert and overt discrimination against students simply because of their country of origin, the Knesset today has made it clear that there is no place for such incidents in an advanced country – which has in its laws the protection of an individual’s dignity and freedom,” initiator of the bill, MK Alex Miller (Yisrael Beiteinu) said on Monday.
Miller, the chairman of the Education, Culture and Sports Committee said “in Israel there is a significant number of students who are immigrants or children of immigrants. In order to protect them from discrimination based on their country of origin, it is necessary to make discrimination against them based on such grounds illegal.”