[News Terms] US Federal Supreme Court Unconstitutional Ruling on 'Affirmative Action'

'Affirmative action' is a term that broadly refers to minority preference policies in the United States. It is a measure that provides benefits to minorities such as Black people or women during college admissions or public institution hiring, also known as 'active preferential treatment' or 'positive discrimination.'

Affirmative action was implemented in 1961 by an executive order from then-President John F. Kennedy, during a time when the Black civil rights movement was active in the U.S. The order stated that "government agencies must take active and affirmative measures to ensure employment regardless of the applicant's race, creed, color, or national origin." Based on this, anti-employment discrimination measures were enacted, and minority-preferential admission policies were introduced in universities.

On the 29th (local time), when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled affirmative action policies favoring minority races in college admissions unconstitutional, citizens held protests in front of the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC.
[Photo by Washington DC AP/ Yonhap News]

Originally started with the intention of giving more opportunities to minorities such as Black people who were marginalized in the predominantly white American society, the scope later expanded to include gender, disabilities, and more. The system of awarding additional admission points to minorities based on affirmative action, known as 'Students for Fair Admissions (SFA),' has increasingly faced criticism for allegedly discriminating against white and Asian applicants.

Accordingly, among the 50 U.S. states, nine states including California, Michigan, Florida, Washington, Arizona, Nebraska, Oklahoma, New Hampshire, and Idaho have banned race-based admission preference policies at public universities.

On the 29th (local time), the U.S. Supreme Court ruled the 'SFA' cases against Harvard University and the University of North Carolina unconstitutional, intensifying the controversy over affirmative action in American society. Following the overturning of the 'Roe vs. Wade' decision in June last year, which brought abortion to the forefront of the presidential election issues, affirmative action has also become a hot topic, stirring up the U.S. political scene.

President Joe Biden expressed strong opposition in a press conference, calling it "a rollback of decades of precedent and significant progress," while former President Donald Trump, a leading Republican contender in the upcoming election, posted on his social media, "We are returning to a system based entirely on merit, and this is the right path."

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.