How to Use affirmative action in a Sentence

affirmative action

noun
Definition of affirmative actionnext
  • But the next year, federal court rulings struck down affirmative action programs in schools across the country.
    — Washington Post, 29 Nov. 2021
  • The firm is also behind a major affirmative action case heading to the Supreme Court.
    — Ariane De Vogue, CNN, 18 Nov. 2021
  • All of that coincides with the Supreme Court’s decision last year to end affirmative action in colleges.
    — Allison Morrow, CNN, 22 Oct. 2024
  • Others — like Bill Gates' daughter, Phoebe Gates — use their privilege and fame for affirmative action.
    — Diane J. Cho, Peoplemag, 19 Sep. 2024
  • The fall of affirmative action is part of a 50-year campaign to roll back racial progress.
    — Nikole Hannah-Jones Nikole Hannah-Jones Phoebe Zerwick Sam Apple Kwame Anthony Appiah Yotam Ottolenghi Jillian Steinhauer Peter C. Baker John Hodgman, New York Times, 17 Mar. 2024
  • How many times will the question of affirmative action come before the Supreme Court?
    — Washington Post, 9 Feb. 2022
  • This has always been the crux of the affirmative action debate.
    — Adam Liptak, BostonGlobe.com, 30 Oct. 2022
  • The Supreme Court takes up a case on affirmative action today.
    — Nicole Fallert, USA TODAY, 31 Oct. 2022
  • Now that Roe has been overturned, affirmative action is next on the high court’s docket this fall.
    — Van Jones, CNN, 20 July 2022
  • In that same scene, her dad makes a snide remark about affirmative action.
    — Jazz Tangcay, Variety, 13 June 2024
  • Three years later, when her case returned to the court, the justices in a narrow ruling upheld the school's use of affirmative action.
    — Jessica Gresko, BostonGlobe.com, 30 Oct. 2022
  • Three years later, when her case returned to the court, the justices in a narrow ruling upheld the school’s use of affirmative action.
    — Jessica Gresko, Fortune, 30 Oct. 2022
  • That would be a major shift for the court, which first ruled in favor of affirmative action policies in admissions in 1978.
    — Jessica Gresko, BostonGlobe.com, 30 Oct. 2022
  • Even still, most Americans agree with the goals of affirmative action.
    — Steven P. Dinkin, San Diego Union-Tribune, 13 Feb. 2022
  • Everything from women’s rights to affirmative action is in front of the Supreme Court this session.
    — Darcel Rockett, Chicago Tribune, 20 Oct. 2022
  • Chevron has joined Roe v. Wade and a pair of affirmative action decisions on the list of high-profile, decades-old precedents overturned by this high court.
    — Henry Gass, The Christian Science Monitor, 8 July 2024
  • Then in 2016, Oakland designed the first program that used proxies for race to get around affirmative action.
    — Amanda Chicago Lewis, The New Republic, 4 Apr. 2022
  • The affirmative action case probably will be argued in the fall.
    — Mark Sherman, chicagotribune.com, 24 Jan. 2022
  • The affirmative action case probably will be argued in the spring.
    — Mark Sherman, ajc, 24 Jan. 2022
  • Gideon: Speaking of law on policy, the Supreme Court just banned affirmative action.
    — Gideon Lichfield, WIRED, 20 Sep. 2023
  • Yet, the environment has changed considerably in the six years since the Supreme Court last ruled in an affirmative action case.
    — BostonGlobe.com, 1 Aug. 2022
  • Now the fate of affirmative action is in the hands of the conservative majority Supreme Court.
    — Nicquel Terry Ellis, CNN, 29 Oct. 2022
  • The schools are at the center of two high-profile cases that pose a threat to affirmative action admission policies.
    — Kimmy Yam, NBC News, 4 Aug. 2022
  • Nikole Hannah-Jones examines how the fall of affirmative action may be viewed as part of a 50-year campaign to undermine the progress of the civil rights movement.
    — John Hodgman, New York Times, 5 Apr. 2024
  • The Supreme Court appears ready to abolish affirmative action later this year.
    — Los Angeles Times, 4 Jan. 2023
  • This week, the Justices agreed to hear what may be two explosive cases on affirmative action.
    — Amy Davidson Sorkin, The New Yorker, 26 Jan. 2022
  • In 2017, the IITs introduced an affirmative action scheme for women, and the gender balance has improved.
    — Akanksha Singh, WIRED, 4 Sep. 2023
  • Admissions deans rarely speak openly about the subject, and the most data that has been spilled on the matter came about from an affirmative action lawsuit filed against Harvard in 2014.
    — Town & Country, 18 Jan. 2023
  • Last June, the Supreme Court struck down affirmative action in college admissions.
    — Rachel Poser January Lavoy Krish Seenivasan David Mason, New York Times, 4 June 2024
  • In a statement to The Washington Post, Blum suggested that the case may represent an important new front in the war against affirmative action.
    — Julian Mark, Washington Post, 9 Mar. 2024

Some of these examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'affirmative action.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

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