Five Academic Council Members Resign in Protest Over Gender Segregation Law Expansion in Israeli Higher Education

Five representatives from Israel's Council for Higher Education (CHE) resigned on Monday in protest against a newly passed law expanding gender segregation in academic institutions. Their resignations were submitted to President Isaac Herzog and Education Minister Yoav Kish a day before the CHE's first scheduled discussion on implementing the law. This move leaves the council nearly without opposition except for Professor Tamar Hermann from the Hebrew University and the Israel Democracy Institute, potentially undermining the council's standing internationally.

The resigning members include Idith Tshuva, a chemistry professor at Hebrew University and former CHE deputy chair; Marcel Mahlouf, a biotechnology engineering professor at Technion; Moshe Vigdor, CEO of the Mandel Foundation and former CHE CEO; Jihad Al-Sana, a computer science professor at Ben-Gurion University; and Leah Lior, a music education professor at Levinsky Academic Center and Wingate Institute. Four of them, excluding Vigdor, jointly stated that the law represents an unprecedented interference in the CHE's independence and threatens core academic values such as academic freedom, equality, excellence, and pluralism.

They warned the law could lead to the exclusion of women from academic spaces as students, researchers, and faculty, damaging the quality, reputation, and public trust in Israeli higher education. Vigdor separately emphasized that the law undermines the CHE's professional and ethical responsibilities and legitimizes the exclusion of women in academia and potentially other public spheres. He stressed his resignation was not political but based on a deep commitment to a strong, free, equal, and excellent academic system as a pillar of Israel's national strength.

The Knesset approved the law early Thursday morning, expanding gender-segregated study tracks from undergraduate to graduate levels and allowing additional populations beyond the ultra-Orthodox to participate. It also recognizes separate institutions, potentially extending segregation to public spaces beyond classrooms. The CHE is set to discuss the law's implementation for the first time tomorrow.

On the same day as the resignations, ten academic staff members, led by Professor Yofi Tirosh from Tel Aviv University's law faculty and joined by six ultra-Orthodox academics, petitioned the Supreme Court against the law. They argue it restricts freedom of choice for men and women in the ultra-Orthodox community, deepens gender segregation, harms higher education quality, negatively impacts women students and faculty, and reduces ultra-Orthodox integration into academia, the workforce, and Israeli society at large.