A Lei de Cotas Raciais para Ingresso em Instituições de Ensino Federais como Arena de Disputaas estruturas que possibilitaram a preservação de direitos da população negra

Resumo

Law No. 12,711/2012 (the Racial Quotas Law) marked a watershed in the consolidation of affirmative action policies in Brazil by establishing reserved admissions places in federal higher-education institutions and federal technical secondary schools for public-school students, with a racial allocation proportional to the Black, Brown, and Indigenous populations. Since its enactment, the policy has been the object of legislative, legal, and symbolic contestation, combining efforts to expand it with proposals for adjustments as well as initiatives aimed at restricting or eliminating it. The statutory review scheduled for 2022—only materialized in 2023 through the enactment of Bill No. 5,384/2020 (Law No. 14,723/2023)—ultimately strengthened the policy and introduced expansionary changes. This study examines the process through which the Quotas Law was reviewed and expanded through the lens of the Political Opportunity Structure (POS) Theory and the Legal Opportunity Structure (LOS) Theory, situating the review bill within the broader universe of 186 legislative proposals considered by the Chamber of Deputies and the Federal Senate between August 2012 and April 2025. The investigation combines legislative documentary analysis, mapping of key normative and institutional milestones, and interviews, seeking to identify how factors such as the openness of the political system, the stability of elite alignments, the presence of strategic allies, the state’s capacity and propensity for repression, and the alignment of cultural and legal frames shaped the outcome. The findings suggest that the approval of the revision resulted from a specific combination of political and legal factors that raised the costs of rollback and favored expansionary change. Rather than following automatically from previously affirmed constitutionality or from a change in government alone, the revision emerged from a contingent convergence of institutional openness, strategic action by legislative allies, shifts in elite alignments, and a favorable legal-cultural framing that channeled conflict into institutional arenas and reduced the state’s propensity – especially within the legislature and related state arenas—for the adoption of gatekeeping and agenda-containment strategies. At the same time, the study shows that this outcome was contingent and dependent on particular forms of coordination and did not translate into broad-based consensus or definitive stability for the policy. The analysis also highlights the limits of an exclusively documentary approach for capturing informal dynamics, behind-the-scenes negotiations, and mediation strategies between social movements and institutions, underscoring the importance of methodological triangulation. In this way, the study contributes to debates on the conditions under which the rights of historically discriminated groups can be preserved and expanded, offering a situated reading of the Brazilian case and outlining analytical and methodological paths for future research on institutional disputes surrounding affirmative action policies.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Dissertação

Ano

2026

Instituição

Fundação Getulio Vargas

Fonte

Repositório da FGV

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Acesso aberto

Identificador

oai:repositorio.fgv.br:10438/38560

Temas

Educação

Palavras-chave

Revisão Lei de Cotas Raciais para ingresso em Instituições de Ensino FederaisPolíticas de ação afirmativaMovimentos sociaisTeoria da Estrutura de Oportunidades PolíticasTeoria da Estrutura de Oportunidades JurídicasProcesso legislativoReview of the Racial Quotas Law for admission to federal education institutionsAffirmative action policiesSocial movementsPolitical Opportunity Structure TheoryLegal Opportunity Structure TheoryLegislative processDireitoBrasil. [Lei n. 12.711, de 29 de agosto de 2012]Programas de ação afirmativa na educaçãoUniversidades e faculdades - IngressoPoder legislativo