RACIAL QUOTAS IN BRAZILIAN UNIVERSITIES

THE ETHICS OF ALTERITY AND THE EDUCATION OF ETHNIC-RACIAL RELATIONS

Abstract

The article discusses the meanings of the racial quotas policies' approval in Brazilian public universities, from Emmanuel Lévinas’ ethics of alterity perspective. Based on the judgment of the STF for the legitimacy of quotas and on Federal Law n. º 12,711, both in 2012, the text analyzes the effects of this position and the enactment of the Law for the Brazilian racial dynamics and the education of ethnic-racial relations. The review of the literature on the subject leaves no doubt that the positive discrimination policy was a step forward in terms of guaranteeing rights for the Afro-Brazilian population. Beyond this perspective, the ethics of otherness shows that when new encounters are established at the university, transcendent relationships to being are enhanced, causing an ontological turnaround. In this way, affirmative politics has also had relevant effects in the social scope, tensioning and producing other relationships, necessary for the development of racial equity.