AbstractThis article highlights the black movement’s centrality to building anti-racist universities in Brazil. It examines the questioning of the racial democracy myth within Brazilian universities as well as in the Brazilian mainstream media since the beginning of the new millennium. This debate was referred to the Supreme Court, which affirmed the constitutionality of racially oriented affirmative action measures. After the Supreme Court pronouncement, the Federal Government approved Law 12.711/2012 that instituted affirmative action within every federal university in the country. Even if it seems to be a victory in the anti-racist struggle, in this new law the racial dimension is a category tagging along behind that of social class. Considering that, the article concludes by calling for the need to redeem the original meaning of the debate, namely the anti-racist struggle.