A JEWISH school in Kenton has failed to overturn a ruling that its former admissions policy amounted to racial discrimination.
Nine judges at the Supreme Court turned down an appeal by the admissions board at JFS, in The Mall, after its admissions policy was judged to have breached race relations legislation and be discriminatory by the Court of Appeal.
The ruling, by the highest court in the land, means the school's subsequent change of admissions policy will now be permanent.
The issue stems from a complaint made by an unnamed father, who objected after his ten-year-old son was rejected for a place at JFS because of the rules made by the chief rabbi of the United Synagogue.
Although the father and son are practicing Orthodox Jews, the school said because his mother converted to Judaism in a non-Orthodox synagogue and is of Italian Catholic origin, the boy was not recognised as Jewish.
That admissions policy was dropped by the school after the Court of Appeal ruled in June it amounted to racial discrimination.
The judgment was hailed by Trevor Phillips, chairman of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, as an important verdict.
He said: “Whilst not seeking to interfere with the Jewish community's right to promote its religious ethos, the Commission believed that it had to intervene in order to preserve the same protection against racial discrimination for Jews as for anyone else - not least at a time when anti-Semitic groups are active across Europe.
“The decision of the court achieves that end; and it confirms that no school will be allowed to discriminate based on the ethnic origin of an individual.”
In June, the school put in place a new policy where prospective pupils got points based on their level of religious practice, amount of volunteering in the Jewish community, and whether they attended a Jewish primary school.
The change was reluctantly accepted by the school, and today's ruling could have ramifications for faith schools across the country. It could be seen as a test case for whether schools can choose pupils based on their ethnic backgrounds.
Russell Kett, chairman of the JFS governors, said: “The governors and the school are naturally disappointed at the Supreme Court’s decision and we must now set about establishing a more workable solution for a Jewish practice test to be used for admissions in 2011.
“JFS School felt it had no alternative than to continue to press for its test of ‘Jewishness’ to be based solely on orthodox Jewish religious law, rather than on a series of factors which themselves have no relevance under Jewish law but which seem to support the notion of a test of Jewish practice required by the English legal system.”
There was, however, a glimmer of hope for JFS in today's ruling, as judges suggested the race relations legislation may be defective, and it could be up to Parliament to look at changing the law to allow Jewish schools to admit pupils based on their maternal lineage.
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