These courses are generally operated by organizations that bid for the right to give these courses. They are generally not internal to the "DMV ", but contracted out.
So it seems that these people running the courses were offering (in some locations) separate courses for women and separate courses for women. The problem seemed to be that the courses for men were far more frequent than the courses for women, and women were being turned away from taking their necessary refresher courses until a course could be arranged.
As an aside, perhaps that means there are less women needing these refresher courses than men - i.e., women are generally better drivers than men?
Back on point, a womens rights organization appealed to the Comptrollers office. Dina Zilber initially responded that such courses are to be stopped and the State can only offer courses open to everybody. Now Avihai Mandelblit has submitted to the Minister of Transportation (both outgoing Yisrael Katz and incoming Betzalel Smotritch) that such separate courses are to be stopped. In his letter he says that if a group of people get together independently and put together a course for just men or women that would be fine, but it cannot be offered by the operators of the course.
I guess that means that if, let's say, a course is open to 20 people at a time and someone puts together 20 men who need the course to all register for the same course with the result being that this course is only attended by men, that would be fine. The operators cannot offer the course and advertise the course as a men-only course.The haredi community is upset about this, again blaming Mandelblit and Zilber for causing women to stay away as women wont go to a mixed course and they'll simply just not renew the license rather than sit in a mixed-gender course.
It is a shame that courses cannot be tailored to the needs of local communities. I don't know if there is anything wrong with this type of course specifically being gender-mixed, personally I see nothing wrong with it, but if a community has needs, and if we want them to integrate into society somewhat, it behooves us to come to them, somewhat, and make it accessible on their terms, to a certain extent.
That being said, the way the Haredi community is going so extreme in so many ways nowadays is disturbing and one thing continues to lead to another. The Comptroller office opposing it isn't going to stop the community from getting more extreme - it might even have the opposite effect and somehow continue to push the extremism along as it then becomes a fight and the haredi community does not often back down when they feel their lifestyle is being attacked. While I get that the law does not allow the State to fund or sponsor gender-separate events that are not religious in nature, and while I think the Haredi community needs to tone down their increasing extremism a bit, I wish there were a way for local communities to be serviced in ways appropriate to them.
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