Around the globe, such policies focus on race, ethnicity, gender, geographic origin, class, caste and other considerations, many of them highly tailored to their local context.
With the future of affirmative action in question in the United States, here is a look at how it has taken shape elsewhere.
Two decades ago, some Brazilian universities adopted race-based quotas for admissions, seeking to increase the share of Black, brown and indigenous students, based in part on a U.S. blueprint. A lawsuit challenging the practice made it to the Federal Supreme Court, which in 2012 upheld the constitutionality of affirmative action policies taking race into account.
Brazil, the last country in the world to abolish slavery, saw in years after the ruling a surge in the public debate over the use of ethnic or racial admissions criteria. Racial identity in Brazil is complicated by the country’s 500-year history of interracial mixing: Most Brazilian are of a diverse racial background, and many reject a clear-cut black or white identity, instead viewing their race as somewhere in between.
A study by Brazil’s official statistics agency demonstrated that race continues to be a major factor in inequality in Brazil. In 2021, a survey showed that white Brazilians earned on average more than 75 percent higher income than black Brazilians. Similarly, white workers earned nearly 71 percent more than brown workers.
Following the court ruling, the country passed laws mandating slots set aside for black, brown and indigenous people, public school graduates and low-income students at federal universities — reserving up to 50 percent of spaces.
Brazil’s previous, far-right president, Jair Bolsonaro, criticized the law, calling it “totally wrong” and “a way of dividing society.” But it survived his administration.
Earlier this year, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who supports the policy, signed a decree that set aside at least 30 percent of Brazil’s appointed positions in federal government to people who are Black or of mixed race. In April, the country’s minister of racial equality, Anielle Franco, vowed that the law would remain in place.
Other countries in the Americas have begun to pursue affirmative action admissions policies in recent decades, including Colombia and Ecuador.
Under India’s “reservation” system of affirmative action in admissions, which predates such policies in the United States, places in universities are reserved for members of historically disadvantaged castes.
The approach targets those most disadvantaged by centuries-old caste hierarchies that long ruled nearly every aspect of Hindu religious and social life.
India’s constitution, adopted in 1950, sought to provide equal opportunity by reserving spaces for disadvantaged groups in educational and governmental institutions.
Detractors argue that reservations should be tied to economic criteria. Supporters of the program respond that such a move would overlook stigma and other caste-based oppression that crosses economic lines.
France, like the United Kingdom, does not permit “positive discrimination.” Policies meant to foster racial equality must focus on interrelated criteria such as geographic origin, socioeconomic background or attendance at particular high schools.
France’s policies include introducing large-scale vocational training and services that support and benefit the long-term unemployed and disadvantaged neighborhoods. Funds meant to level the educational playing field are allotted for schools in designated geographical sectors.
Sciences Po, one of France’s most prestigious universities, has taken up its own approach with the Priority Education Conventions program, or CEP, which provides students from predesignated high schools with an alternative entry procedure.
