Lubavitch school told to change entry form - The Jewish Chronicle

A Lubavitch school whose application form listed the only options to a question on ethnic background to be “white” has been told to revise its entry rules.

The state-aided Ruth Lunzer Girls Primary School in Hackney was also told its religious criteria for allocating places was too vague.

The Office of the Schools Adjudicator (OSA) partially upheld a complaint against the school, which is part of the Lubavitch Multi-Academy Trust, that was made by the National Secular Society.

According to the Schools Admissions Code, the criteria used for deciding places must be “fair, clear and objective”.

The case adjudicator, Bryan Slater, took issue with some of the requests for information on an application form published online, including one which stated: “Ethnic background: White-Orthodox Jewish/ White-British/ White-European/ White-Other”.

He commented, “I share the concern expressed by the objector that the form appears to imply that only those of certain ethnicities ‘cannot be prioritised, or cannot apply at all’.”

Other requested details, about the occupation of parents or their marital status, fell foul of the admissions code, he found.

The school’s website said priority would be given to girls “according to halochah” (Jewish law).

But ruling against Ruth Lunzer, Dr Slater said that “the lack of clarity concerning the meaning of ‘according to halochah’ renders the arrangements non-compliant, and that the arrangements will need to be revised to rectify this fault.”

But he did not uphold the NSS’s objection that the reference to halachah breached equality law.

In the 2009 judgment against JFS, the Supreme Court ruled that offering school places on the basis of the Jewish status of parents amounted to racial discrimination. (Schools are permitted to choose applicants according to levels of religious practice).

From the information available, Dr Slater said, “I cannot conclude that the school has ever interpreted the phrase as the objector fears it may do (that is in the way found to be in breach of equalities legislation in the JFS case)”.

The school told him that the Lubavitch MAT “fully appreciates the need for the school's admissions arrangements to be fully compliant with all aspects of the School Admissions Code and relevant legislation.”

But since it had been undersubscribed in recent years, all applicants had been accepted, it explained, and its admissions policy had “not therefore been tested in practice”.

Although it has room to take 30 girls in reception, over the past three years annual applicants had never exceeded 13.

The adjudicator said the school would need to make “significant changes” to its admissions arrangements but gave it till the end of February next year, since it was unlikely to be oversubscribed for 2022 entry.

A spokesman for the Lubavitch MAT told the JC the adjudicator had accepted that with the advent of a new Schools Admissions Code in September this year “our arrangements were undergoing a review in any event, and with the adjudicator’s helpful guidance we are now eager to ensure that our arrangements will be fully compliant with the new code which we believe truly reflects Lubavitch values of inclusivity”.

The OSA found “there had not been a breach of equalities legislation and acknowledged that no one had been disadvantaged by the oversubscription criteria having to be invoked”.

Through the revised arrangements, the trust added, “we aim to share the message of our welcoming approach to pupils from all backgrounds and bring further clarity to the process for potential parents”.

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