Does Equality Require Integration?: A Case Study
Democratic Culture ( תרבות דמוקרטית), Vol. 3, pp. 37-87, 2000
52 Pages Posted: 27 Apr 2016 Last revised: 8 May 2016
Date Written: April 26, 2000
Abstract
The purpose of this paper is to present a test case, and to use it as the basis for presenting for discussion one of the most important, and most under-discussed, questions haunting the quest for civic equality in Israel and in many other countries: how we should seek to promote equality? Should we seek to integrate all citizens into the same structures and frameworks in education, living arrangements, and employment? Should we empower different groups within separated structures? Or should we strive for some mixture of these approaches? And should we constitutionalize our choice, so that it is principled, applies everywhere, and is possibly enforceable by the courts? Or should we leave the determination of these questions to individual communities and the regular play and give-and-take of politics?
I will start from a case in which a policy seeking to reinforce separation in the educational system of the mixed Jewish-Arab town of Jaffa was successfully challenged in the Israeli High Court of Justice. In the first section I explain and analyze the outcome of this case against the background of Arab-Jewish relations in Israel, the structure of the educational system in Israel, and the uniqueness of Jaffa. In the second section I provide a summary reminder of some highlights in the way the United States has dealt with the segregation of blacks in the public educational system. In the third section I try to draw some lessons from the test case and the background information supplied about Israel and the United States concerning ways to approach the question of integration v. separation as modes for achieving equality.
Keywords: Equality, Integration, Human Rights
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