The aim of the paper is to draft an outline of how an egalitarian justification of affirmative action might look like. I do so by injecting the ideas of parity, equal representation and participation into what has been established within the US philosophical debate on the policy. An egalitarian justification of affirmative action has to answer four questions, which, at the same time, structure the argument of my paper. First, I will consider whether and to what extent affirmative action measures are compatible with procedural fairness or may be even required by it, and which role equality plays in this connection. In the second paragraph, I will introduce a substantive account of equal opportunity and analyze how the policies in questions may contribute to the realization of this meritocratic ideal. In a third step, I will try to make sense of parity, equal representation and participation by connecting them to a concept of political equality, again, asking how affirmative action fits the bill. Finally, I explore the connections (and tensions) between procedural fairness, equal opportunity and parity and situate these ideas within a broader framework of democratic or relational equality.