Dr. Tammy Harel Ben-Shahar

Dr. Tammy Harel Ben Shahar is a senior lecturer at the Faculty of Law, and the Academic Director of the Clinics for Law and Social Change. Dr. Harel Ben Shahar completed her LLD at the Hebrew University Law Faculty. Her dissertation on Equality in Education and the Privatization of Education won the Bronfman prize for outstanding dissertation in the Humanities, Social Sciences and Law. After completing her doctoral studies, Harel Ben Shahar spent two years as a post-doctoral scholar at Columbia University and at the Tikvah Center in the NYU Law school as a Fulbright fellow. Her scholarship engages issues in the intersection between Law and Philosophy, and focuses especially on Education Law and Philosophy, Distributive Justice, Human Rights, and Political Philosophy.

• “Ability Segregation” Tulane Law Review (2023).
• “Ability and Ability Grouping” in: Handbook for The Philosophy of Education (ed. Randell Curren, Routledge) (2022).
• “Democratic Equality and Higher Education: Moving from Access to Completion”, (with Sigal Ben-Porath and Dustin Webster) Journal of Social Philosophy (2022).
• “Employment and Education, an agenda for future research”, in: A Research Agenda for Social Welfare Law, Policy and Practice (with Amir Paz-Fuchs) ( Michael Adler, Elgar) 2022).
• “Algorithmic Parenting” (with Eldar Haber), Fordham Intellectual Property, Media & Entertainment Law Journal (2021).
• “Higher Education: Too Much of a (Potentially) Good Thing?” (with Omer Kimhi), Wake Forest Law Review (2019).
• “Separate but Equal Reconsidered: Religious Education and Gender Separation” (with Amir Paz-Fuchs) Human Rights Law Review (2019).
• “For God’s Sake, Don’t Segregate! Two Kinds of Religious Schools and Equality in Education“, Studies in Law, Politics and Society (2019).
• “Privatization of Education in Israel,” in: The Privatization of Israel (eds. Galnoor, Mandelkern, and Paz-Fuchs, Springer 2018).
• “Big Data and Educational Justice” Theory and Research in Education (2017).
• “Reshaping Ability Grouping Through Big Data” (with Yoni Har Carmel), Vanderbilt Journal of Entertainment and Technology Law (2017).
• “Religious Justification, Elitist Outcome: Are Religious Schools Being Used to Avoid Integration?” (with Eyal Berger) Journal of Education Policy (2018)
• “Positional Goods and the Size of Inequality“, Journal of Political Philosophy (2017).
• “Race Class and Religion: Creaming and Cropping in Religious Charter Schools“, Columbia Journal of Race and Law7: (2016)
• “Equality in Educational Outcome: Why We Must Go All the Way”, Ethical Theory and Moral Practice (2016)
• “Distributive Justice in Education and Conflicting Interests: Not (Remotely) As Bad As You Think”, Journal of Philosophy of Education (2015)

Publications in Hebrew

• “Should Public Schools in Israel be Allowed to Charge Payment from Parents,” Law & Government (Mishpat U’Mimshal) (2022).
• Close-by and Separate: On the segregation of refugees in school: following Brown v. Tel Aviv (with Shahar Yinnone) Icon-s-IL-Blog (2022).
• Regulating the Legal Clinical Education in Israel (with Ruthy Lowenstein Lazar & Yael Efron) Regulation Studies (2022).
• The Private School is Dead, Long Live Privatization (with Haran Reichman), Hukim (2022).

• “Leveling Down in Education” Tel Aviv L. Rev. (2017).
• Educational Autonomy, Core Curricula, and Public Funding of Education – The 2008 Culturally-Unique Schools Act”, Law & Government (Misphat Umimshal) (2009).

Work in progress

• “Educational Justice and the Value of Excellence”
• “Limitarianism and Relative Thresholds”
• “Redefining Ability, Saving Meritocracy”

• Post-doctoral fellow, Columbia University Law School (2015).
• Post-doctoral Tikvah fellow, NYU School of Law (2014); David Berg fellow (2014).
• L.L.D, The Faculty of Law, Hebrew University, Jerusalem (2013).
• L.L.B (summa cum laude), The Faculty of Law, University of Haifa, (2003).

What’s Wrong With School Choice, Hatraklin Legal Blog (28.3.2012)