affirmative action

1. 1.

   a policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities

   “affirmative action has been extremely controversial and was challenged in 1978 in the Bakke decision”

   Broadersocial action

Questions about affirmative action

What does affirmative action mean?

affirmative action means "a policy designed to redress past discrimination against women and minority groups through measures to improve their economic and educational opportunities".

Is affirmative action a common word?

affirmative action is banded "Rare" — specialist or archaic — most readers will not have met it. The band comes from how often the word appears in a large corpus of everyday English, not from an editor's impression.