diff --git a/archai/discrete_search/evaluators/nlp/parameters.py b/archai/discrete_search/evaluators/nlp/parameters.py
index a894f40ee..7734bd691 100644
--- a/archai/discrete_search/evaluators/nlp/parameters.py
+++ b/archai/discrete_search/evaluators/nlp/parameters.py
@@ -29,7 +29,7 @@ def __init__(self, exclude_cls: Optional[List[nn.Module]] = None, trainable_only
 
         """
 
-        self.exclude_cls = [nn.Embedding] or exclude_cls
+        self.exclude_cls = exclude_cls or [nn.Embedding] 
         self.trainable_only = trainable_only
 
     @overrides