Israeli Medical Deans Warn Gender Segregation Law Will Harm Healthcare Quality and Public Health

Ahead of the upcoming second and third readings of the proposed "Gender Segregation" law in higher education, deans of all nine Israeli medical schools issued a strong letter to Knesset members. They warned that applying this law to medical and health professions education would severely damage the quality of medical care in Israel and endanger public health. The letter states that the law could cause serious harm to Israeli citizens' health and jeopardize the international recognition of Israeli medical education.

The amendment to the Student Rights Law would allow gender-segregated academic tracks for advanced degrees (master's and doctoral), with segregation permitted only in classrooms, not in public academic spaces. Participation would be voluntary, and institutions would require specific approval from the Council for Higher Education. However, academia fears this will lead to exclusion, harm women's equality, and degrade teaching and research quality.

The medical deans emphasize that gender would become the primary criterion for training medical staff instead of lecturer expertise. They ask lawmakers to consider whether they would prefer the best surgeon regardless of gender or one chosen based on gender alone. Currently, gender segregation is mostly limited to undergraduate studies, but the law would extend it to advanced degrees.

They highlight that mixed-gender, multi-sectoral study groups, including secular, ultra-Orthodox, and Arab students, are essential for high-quality education tailored to diverse population needs. The deans warn that undermining this shared learning environment will cause irreversible damage, including loss of international accreditation, preventing Israeli doctors from pursuing prestigious fellowships abroad and harming the availability and quality of specialists.

Signatories include prominent professors from Ben-Gurion University, Bar-Ilan University, Tel Aviv University, Reichman University, Technion, Weizmann Institute, University of Haifa, Ariel University, and Hebrew University. Dean Arnon Afek of Reichman University, a former Health Ministry director-general, stressed that while some gender segregation in undergraduate studies may be a necessary compromise to integrate ultra-Orthodox students, extending it to advanced degrees in medicine and psychology is professionally harmful and contradicts global teaching standards. He urged lawmakers to prioritize professional and academic considerations over political ones when voting on the bill.