Charles Pigott talks gender segregation & discrimination, & considers what we can learn from the Al-Hijrah school case
- The Court of Appeal has ruled that gender segregation at a single site mixed school was direct sex discrimination.
- However the majority stopped short of holding that such segregation was inherently discriminatory against women and girls.
The Court of Appeal’s decision in HM Chief Inspector of Education, Children’s Services and Skills v The Interim Executive Board of Al-Hijrah School and others [2017] EWCA Civ 1426 identifies head on some difficult issues of discrimination law arising from the segregation of school pupils on religious grounds.
Al-Hijrah school is a voluntary aided faith school for boys and girls aged from four to 16. Although operating on a single site, it has followed the practice of educating boys and girls separately from Year Five onwards. The question before the Court of Appeal was whether this practice amounted to direct discrimination on grounds of sex.
History of the litigation
The story starts with an Ofsted inspection report in June 2016 which, among a number of other criticisms of
