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2025 August 13 - 19 TOP3 [SOCIAL ISSUES]

High School Baseball Federation should strive to eliminate ethnic discrimination from ‘Koshien’ Championship

Kyoto International Senior High School and two schools from Tokyo, as well as one school from Yamanashi Prefecture, as of August 16, advanced to the quarterfinals of the summer National High School Baseball Tournament currently being held at Koshien Stadium (Nishinomiya City, Hyogo Pref.).

Kyoto International has been the target of a series of discriminatory posts on social media.

The school, founded as a South Korean ethnic school, was recognized as a “school” under the School Education Act in 2003. While some students are of Korean nationality, the majority are Japanese.

According to the Kyoto prefectural and city governments, some of these posts contain ethnic slurs and insults, such as “Go back to Korea.”

Since last year, the Kyoto prefectural and city governments have been actively addressing such malicious posts. This time, they requested that the Legal Affairs Bureau and X Corp. Japan delete three particularly malicious posts, in accordance with the Act on the Promotion of Efforts to Eliminate Unfair Discriminatory Speech and Behavior against Persons Originating from Outside Japan.

In contrast, the Japan High School Baseball Federation has done almost nothing. Sports are rooted in the fair spirit of eliminating all forms of discrimination. Social media posts that incite ethnic discrimination are nothing short of a betrayal of sports. To eliminate discrimination and protect students, the Japan High School Baseball Federation must take a firm stance on this issue.