A bill to deny the budgeting of educational institutions, which discriminate against students in enrolling in them based on sectarian background, will be put up for a vote in the Knesset plenum this evening (Wednesday).
The proposal, by MK Meir Cohen (Yesh Atid) aims to prevent situations in which educational institutions can discriminate in registration between male and female students of different sectarian or national backgrounds. One of these cases was recently reported in Walla!. This is a
school in Jerusalem that in practice maintains segregation between female students of Ashkenazi origin and among the female students of Spanish origin, despite various appeals by the parents to prevent the discrimination.
Another case that was a catalyst for the bill is a case that happened in 2020. The principal of a school in Ramla, under the auspices of the director of the education department in the municipality, refused to admit a 6-year-old student to school due to the suspicion that his mother is not Jewish, even though she immigrated to Israel 19 years ago under the Law of Return.
In the 2017 school year, more than 30 female students did not start the school year at school, following the non-agreement of schools and seminaries to enroll them for studies in their framework due to sectarian motives. Also, there are Ethiopian students who stayed at home and did not start the school year at home The school, because the school refused to enroll them for sectarian reasons.
Female students at an ultra-orthodox school (Photo: ShutterStock)
This bill is intended to prevent, among other things, the situation in which there are schools in Israel that are not ready to enroll male and female students in their school because of their sectarian origin.
Section 5(a) of the Student Rights Law, 2000 (hereinafter - the Student Rights Law), states that "a local education authority, an educational institution or a person acting on their behalf, shall not discriminate against a student for sectarian reasons, for reasons of country of origin, for reasons of background Socio-economic, for reasons of sexual orientation or gender identity, or for reasons of political view, whether of the child or of his parents, in any of these: registering a student, admitting or rejecting him from an educational institution, determining separate curricula and promotion tracks in that educational institution, holding classes separate in the same educational institution, student rights and duties, including the disciplinary rules and their application."
Section 5(b) of the Student Rights Law states that anyone who violates the prohibition of discrimination set forth in Section 5(a) commits a criminal offense, but does not stipulate additional sanctions against the educational institution.
"Therefore, the bill I am bringing to the Knesset plenum today states that an educational institution that violates the prohibition of discrimination, and among other things does not accept students due to their sectarian origin, will not receive funding from the state," MK Cohen wrote in the bill.
"It is unthinkable that discriminatory institutions will be budgeted by the Ministry of Education."
Cohen (Photo: Reuven Castro)
MK Meir Cohen said that "the coalition agreement between the Likud and Torah Judaism includes within it the repeal of the prohibition of discrimination in school admissions, and allows open discrimination under the protection of the law.
Section 136 of the coalition agreement signed between the Likud and Torah Judaism is essentially illusory and allows discrimination under the auspices of the law.
It says that 'the government will examine the cancellation of regulation 9(b) in the state education regulations, which concerns the imposition of a fine on an educational institution that discriminates in enrollment to it on sectarian grounds'.
It is unthinkable that in Israel 2023 institutions that discriminate against students based on sectarian background or any other affiliation background will receive funding from the Ministry of Education, this is a racist and discriminatory crooked reality that must not be allowed to happen."
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Meir Cohen
