This study investigates university students' discursive repertoires on affirmative actions. Participants (N=105) answered a written questionnaire about the implementation of racial quotas in public universities. Analyses using Alceste software found four discursive classes, sharing a strong opposition to racial quotas and which differ among them just in the type of arguments included in each one The first class emphasizes the lack of intellectual differences between black and white people; the second class emphasizes the idea that social inequalities between black and white Brazilians are the result of the prejudice against poor people, thus, the quotas should be social. The last classes show the concerned about the quality of education, arguing that this quota system could lower the intellectual level at the universities and what should be done is to improve the quality of primary and secondary education.
affirmative actions; racial quotas; racial prejudice
