ABSTRACT

Following months of debate in 2012, Brazilian President Rousseff signed the Quota Law establishing quotas for the percentages of Black, Brown, and indigenous public secondary school students that public universities must enroll. Guided by a social dominance theory framework, this paper examines the extent to which such a policy can challenge an ideology – racial democracy – that legitimizes inequality. Using secondary data, I evaluate the main arguments made by the policy’s detractors against empirical research on the academic and diversity impacts of affirmative action in public universities in Brazil. How has a deeply entrenched myth of racial democracy influenced the implementation of a policy that centers racial ideology? Answers to this question have implications for better understanding: (1) the role policy can play in disrupting inequality and humanizing marginalized people and (2) how, if at all, evidence supporting equitable policy can disrupt a society’s adherence to a dominant ideology.

摘要

在2012年进行了数月的辩论之后，巴西总统罗塞夫（Rousseff）签署了《配额法》，为公立大学必须招收的黑人，布朗和土著公立中学学生的百分比设定了配额。在社会统治理论框架的指导下，本文考察了这种政策在多大程度上可以挑战使不平等合法化的意识形态-种族民主。我使用辅助数据评估了政策反对者反对在巴西公立大学中平权行动对学术和多样性影响的实证研究的主要论据。根深蒂固的种族民主神话如何影响以种族意识形态为中心的政策的实施？该问题的答案可能有助于更好地理解：