The High Court of Justice has finally given its judgment, after 3 years, in the petitions on sex segregation in universities and colleges.The Concord Center which I direct presented an amicus opinion on international human rights law, which gained considerable attention in the hearings.
The court decided unanimously that exclusion of women lecturers from teaching the male classes is no longer to be allowed. This decision was almost unavoidable in view of the Equal Employment Opportunities Law which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in employment conditions. The point is driven home by the cynical asymmetrical practice to date excluding women lecturers from male classes but allowing male lecturers to teach female classes.
The majority decision nevertheless allows the continuation of the sex segregated classes themselves for haredi students and to those ever-extending groups who qualify to go into the haredi programs. In a minority opinion, Justices Uzi Vogelman and Anat Baron held that the entire project of sex segregation in higher education was illegitimate.
May I add that Vogelman specifically asked me during the hearing whether we would regard the mere prohibition of excluding female lecturers as adequate and I responded decisively in the negative, referring to the authorities in our international human rights brief which categorically insist that the elimination of stereotypes is an integral part of the prohibition of discrimination against women. Indeed, both minority decisions linked their decisions to our claim that sex segregation entrenches gender stereotypes.
Some liberal voices are praising the majority decision as a wise compromise. It is not a compromise but a surrender. The only praise from liberals should be going to the minority opinions of Vogelman and Baron. It is not in any way enough to merely end the employment discrimination against female lecturers.
The surrender to the demand for sex segregation by male students who come from a patriarchal culture is devastating as a model for Israeli society, especially when it is instituted in the universities and colleges which are supposed to represent the center of rationality. Israel in this move has followed the commandments of the more extremist leaders in Iran, where there have been opposing camps on the issue of sex segregation for Iranian campuses.
The writer is president of the Concord Research Center for Integration of International Law in Israel and a member of the steering committee of Zulat for Equality and Human Rights.