A bill working its way through the Knesset promises to bring more ultra-Orthodox Israelis into higher education. Its sponsors present it as a breakthrough for equal opportunity. But the version now being prepared for its final readings would do something far broader than open a door: it would reshape the nature of the space behind it.

The bill passed its first Knesset reading last May and is now being shaped in the Education Committee ahead of its second and third readings. In January, the bill’s sponsor submitted a version that would have extended gender segregation beyond classrooms to cafeterias, libraries, and laboratories. A revised February draft pulled back to classrooms only, but expanded in other directions: from undergraduate degrees to doctoral programs, and from the ultra-Orthodox sector to any group requesting segregation “for religious reasons.” That last phrase marks a significant departure from the Supreme Court’s 2021 ruling, which permitted limited segregation specifically for the Haredi community and only at the undergraduate level.

Throughout the committee debates, one argument has been heard again and again: separating men and women in academic programs is not discrimination but an expression of equal opportunity. The committee chair called opposition “secular........

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