affirmative action

noun

|Updated on: 19 Aug 2018

Definition of affirmative action

: an active effort to improve the employment or educational opportunities of members of minority groups and women

sought to achieve a multicultural staff through affirmative action

; also : a similar effort to promote the rights or progress of other disadvantaged persons

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Recent Examples of affirmative action from the Web

And on Tuesday, the US Departments of Education and Justice announced a rollback of a variety of Obama-era guidance around affirmative action.

— harry bruinius, The Christian Science Monitor, "'Keep the test!' A debate flares over exam-based public high schools.," 6 July 2018
The Obama administration defended affirmative action in court.

— adam harris, The Atlantic, "The Era of Affirmative Action May Not Last Much Longer," 3 July 2018
Some national groups that oppose affirmative action say Washington is an example of why the policy is no longer needed.

— eric tucker, The Seattle Times, "US to stop encouraging race as factor in school admissions," 3 July 2018
Protecting those values will necessarily generate inconsistencies because those values are implicated in different ways in cases concerning affirmative action than in cases concerning reproductive rights or Fourth Amendment search and seizure.

— nancy l. combs, Vox, "An optimist and yet a realist: a former clerk to Justice Kennedy considers his legacy," 30 June 2018
The challengers' goal is reversal of a 1978 Supreme Court landmark decision that first allowed racial affirmative action.

— joan biskupic, CNN, "Lawsuit: Harvard ranks Asian-Americans lower on personality traits," 15 June 2018
Such an argument could have undermined an affirmative action program at the school.

— ann e. marimow, The Seattle Times, "From Clinton to Trump: How Kavanaugh navigated through some of Washington’s biggest scandals," 9 July 2018
Meanwhile, the president is evaluating nominees to replace Justice Anthony Kennedy, who authored the decision to uphold the University of Texas’s affirmative action program in 2016.

— kaila philo, The New Republic, "The Trump administration ditches Obama-era affirmative action policies.," 3 July 2018
The campaign in question, 1 Malaysia, called for reforms to affirmative action in the name of national unity.

— The Economist, "Malaysia’s ruling party may be gone, but its racial policies survive," 7 June 2018

These example sentences are selected automatically from various online news sources to reflect current usage of the word 'affirmative action.' Views expressed in the examples do not represent the opinion of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback.

First Known Use of affirmative action

1961

in the meaning defined above

See Words from the same year

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Other Government and Politics Terms

agent provocateur, agitprop, autarky, cabal, egalitarianism, federalism, hegemony, plenipotentiary, popular sovereignty, socialism

AFFIRMATIVE ACTION Defined for English Language Learners

affirmative action

noun

Definition of affirmative action for English Language Learners

: the practice of improving the educational and job opportunities of members of groups that have not been treated fairly in the past because of their race, sex, etc.