When Religious Women Want Segregated Campuses

MK Limor Son Har-Melech of Otzma Yehudit has advanced a bill that would permit gender-segregated studies in Israeli universities and colleges. The stated goal is increasing higher education participation among religious women who currently avoid mixed-gender campuses. But the opposition sees it as normalizing religious gender separation in public institutions. This episode unpacks the philosophical puzzle: what does liberal neutrality require when a community's conception of the good involves separation the majority finds objectionable? We trace frameworks from Rawls to Nussbaum to the Jewish tradition itself, asking whether the state should permit voluntary single-gender education — and what happens when "just let people do what they want" raises more questions than it settles.