The School Violence Committee became the ‘first trial’ of college entrance exams... The true solution lies outside the court.

Recently, six major national universities, including Seoul National University, rejected 45 applicants with a history of school violence in the 2025 school year entrance exam. Past school violence measures have begun to act as a real disadvantage that determines whether or not a student will be accepted into college. Since all universities will be required to reflect school violence records starting from the 2026 school year, it is clear that the entrance exam threshold for students who have committed school violence will be higher.

As the School Violence Committee's actions have become a shackle on entrance exams, parents are willing to take legal action. Even if it is a minor issue, a lawyer is appointed to actively fight to avoid the fatal outcome of having to write in the student records. As a result, the number of administrative appeals and administrative lawsuits challenging the decisions of the School Violence Committee is rapidly increasing every year. In fact, the number of administrative appeals filed against the School Violence Commission nearly doubled in two years, from 1,295 in 2021 to 2,223 in 2023. So what are the legal issues that parents of school violence perpetrators and victims should be aware of?

First, we need to look at how school violence is defined. Article 2, Paragraph 1 of the ‘School Violence Prevention and Countermeasures Act’ defines school violence very broadly as “injury, assault, confinement, intimidation, kidnapping, enticement, defamation, insults, blackmail, coercion and compulsory errands, sexual violence, bullying, cyber bullying, obscene and violent information using information and communication networks, etc.” This shows that the law opens the scope of school violence much wider than expected, and that various types of acts can be problematic even if they are not accompanied by direct physical force.

Once a report of school violence is received, the school investigates the matter and forwards the matter to the School Violence Committee under the Office of Education. Expert members belonging to the School Violence Committee deliberate on the severity of the case and the degree of reflection of the parties and decide on measures from No. 1 to No. 9. This stage of deliberation by the Academic Violence Committee can be said to be the first legal hurdle. Therefore, a smoother response is possible if you receive assistance from a lawyer at this stage.

In general, the goal of attorney assistance is not only to lower the level of action, but also to secure a legal basis for winning in future administrative trials or administrative lawsuits. In other words, before taking legal action, it is necessary to review factual errors and procedural defects from the academic violence committee stage and design a defense strategy to cancel the disposition itself.

Of course, there are other considerations as well. Many parents often misunderstand that in accordance with Article 17-2 (Delete of Records of Measures) of the School Violence Prevention Act, related records will be deleted upon graduation. However, the measures to be deleted immediately after graduation correspond to relatively minor matters (No. 1 to No. 3). In some cases, deletion requirements must be met, such as the student's degree of remorse and whether or not there is reconciliation with the victim.

What is more important to keep in mind is the timing. If an issue arises while a high school senior, the unfairness of the action may be contested through administrative litigation or the college application may be closed before the requirements for record deletion have been reviewed. In fact, a gap in rights relief is created in which the opportunity to take legal action is fundamentally excluded.

For this reason, there has been an increasing number of cases in recent years where a provisional injunction to suspend execution is filed separately from the main lawsuit immediately after the school violence committee measures are taken. This is a legal response method to temporarily suspend student record entries until the effectiveness of the measure is confirmed, thereby preventing immediate disadvantage in entrance exams, etc. However, in some cases, this procedure leads to long-term litigation, causing victims to suffer psychological burden or secondary damage, and limitations in operating the system are pointed out.

Attorney Soo-yeon Son of Daeryun Law Firm said, "In this way, the school violence committee has gone beyond a simple school disciplinary body and has become a de facto 'entrance exam first trial court' that determines a student's career path and future. The offending student relies on legal means such as suspension of execution to minimize disadvantage, and the victim faces pain once again while demanding a just recovery. However, the longer the legal battle lasts, the deeper the wound will be." He added, "The true solution is not a ruling, but a heartfelt court." “The only way to end the problem of school violence is for the school and society to provide a responsible space for reconciliation and help students return to the learning community,” he said.

Reporter Jin Ga-young, Lawissue news@lawissue.co.kr

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The school violence committee became the ‘first trial’ of college entrance exams... The true solution lies outside the court (go)