Affirmative action at the Supreme Court: connections between law and politics in the difficult promotion of racial equity in Brazil

This article exposes the process of approval of affirmative actions for access to universities in Brazil based on the racial criterion from a different perspective than that most usual in the analysis of judicial decisions. It seeks to highlight the political elements that were established in the period before the decision of ADPF 186, the leading case in the Supreme Court of Brazil (STF), in which the constitutionality of the quotas adopted at the University of Brasilia have been recognized. The paper seeks to demonstrate the connections between these elements, present in several laws approved by the Legislative at the time, as well as in the appointments of some of the Ministers of the STF, among which there were indoctrinators on affirmative actions, and the legal arguments developed in the judgment. Distinctions between affirmative actions in the USA and Brazil are also explored, considering the fact that the American model served as inspiration for Brazil, although it does not enjoy the same acceptance of the past. These connections of meaning enable a more in-depth reading of the legal-institutional meaning of the approval of racial quotas as a mechanism to mitigate inequalities in access to higher education in Brazil, explaining how political clashes within institutions and through their regular functioning are decisive for advancing the provision of rights, in parallel with the demands of the social movement.