Injunction to keep Korea's only Go department rejected

An image of Baduk (Screenshot captured from Myongji University's website)

The Seoul High Court recently turned down an injunction filed by professors and students at South Korea's only university teaching Go, calling for the suspension of the decision to shut down the department, according to legal professionals on Tuesday.

The court ruled that students planning or preparing to enroll in the major faced an unexpected situation following the department's decision to close. However, the court also pointed out that upholding the injunction to halt the closure would require reducing the enrollment quotas of other departments by the same amount as the Go department's quota, which could cause confusion in college admissions.

"The autonomy of a university is a value guaranteed by the Constitution, and Myongji University needs to make changes to its academic structure due to its financial difficulties. It's difficult to say that (the college) has an obligation to maintain the department just because it's the only department in the country that has established a Go department," the court explained in how it reached its decision.

Myongji University has been discussing closing its Go department since 2022 due to financial struggles and a decrease in the number of people playing the strategy board game.

In April last year, the university announced that it would not recruit students for the department starting from the 2025 school year, and the Korean Council for University Education approved the plan.

Following the school's announcement, some 69 faculty members and students filed an injunction claiming that closing the department was "unjust," considering that the professors' status and students' right could be infringed upon and that the amendments in the admissions plan did not include adequate measures to protect their rights and interests.

Established in 1997, Myongji University's Go department has produced professional players for over two decades. There are currently about 100 students.

By Park Jun-hee(junheee@heraldcorp.com)