BRAZIL: Affirmative action on the rise

Affirmative action programmes have spread rapidly across Brazil's higher education institutions. Afro-Brazilians seeking a university education now have access to opportunities that were unreachable just decades ago, writes Amy Erica Smith for Americas Quarterly.

A recent study by the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro found that 70% of Brazil's public universities - both federal and state - have adopted some form of affirmative action. This comes despite the fact that federal legislation for university-based affirmative action has yet to be passed.

The programmes remain controversial but new data from the 2010 round of the AmericasBarometer surveys by the Latin American Public Opinion Project suggest that support for affirmative action among ordinary people is high, with nearly half of Brazilians strongly agreeing that reserving university spots for blacks and mulattoes is fair.
Full report on the Americas Quarterly site