Leading Jewish state school is cleared in race bias case

Nicola Woolcock and Joanna Sugden A leading Jewish state school was cleared yesterday of racially discriminating against the son of a convert in a ruling that shores up the whole faith school system. JFS, formerly the Jewish Free School, refused a place to an 11-year-old boy whose mother had converted to the faith. His father took legal action on the ground that the school's admissions code breached race laws, by favouring children with Jewish-born mothers over religiously observant families who had converted. A High Court judge decided, however, that the school had not discriminated on racial grounds and said that Jewish status could not be determined by secular courts. Mr Justice Mumby recognised that, if the case had succeeded, it would probably have rendered unlawful “the admission arrangements in a very large number of... [read full story]