High Court to Tel Aviv Municipality: Concentration of Foreign Students in Two Schools Created Racial Segregation in Compulsory Education
The Supreme Court ruled today that the concentration of foreign students in two schools in south Tel Aviv created racial segregation in compulsory education, and ordered the municipality and the Ministry of Education to work towards integrating students into other schools. The justices rejected an appeal demanding the closure of the 'Bialik' and 'Gvulot' schools, and did not set a timeline for ending the segregation. Justice Alex Stein wrote that the situation is 'intolerable' and recommended expanding the transportation system.
The Supreme Court ruled today (Sunday) that the concentration of foreign students in two schools in south Tel Aviv created racial segregation in compulsory education. The justices ordered the Tel Aviv municipality and the Ministry of Education to work towards integrating foreign students into other schools as well, but rejected an appeal demanding the closure of the 'Bialik' and 'Gvulot' schools and did not set a timeline for ending the segregation. Justice Alex Stein, whose opinion was joined by Supreme Court President Yitzhak Amit and Justice Gila Kanfy-Steinitz, wrote that 'the concentration of the children of undocumented residents in these schools, alongside the abandonment of these schools by the sons and daughters of Israeli residents, has created, in practice – albeit unintentionally – a situation of racial segregation in compulsory education,' and determined that 'this situation is intolerable.' Stein recommended examining the expansion of the transportation system beyond the distances currently set in regulations, even if this requires legislative changes. The petitioners, Yosef Muhammad Brown and 763 additional parents of undocumented children from the Hatikva, Shapira, and Neve Sha'anan neighborhoods, demanded the closure of the separate schools, but the justices rejected the appeal, partly because according to municipal data, 47% of undocumented children in elementary education are already integrated, and closure shortly before the start of the school year could create chaos in enrollment. The court ordered the municipality and the Ministry of Education to pay the appellants 30,000 shekels in legal costs. Background: The Association for Civil Rights petitioned the district court in 2021 on behalf of about 650 asylum-seeking children and their parents and about 100 parents of Israeli citizen students; the petition was rejected in 2022, and the association appealed to the Supreme Court. In a hearing about a year ago, it was determined that there was consensus that the situation was not normal, and in May 2026 the court ordered the Ministry of Education and the municipality to submit a response.