Human Rights defends prevailing of educational quotas in Rio
Performance of quota students is better than that of the non-quota ones
On Wednesday (28), the Committee on Human Rights and Minorities sent an open letter to the Supreme Court Judges of the state of Rio de Janeiro (TJ-RJ), to express their contrariety regarding the suspension of the States’ Law 5.346, which guarantees the quota system for the entry of poor students in states’ universities. That suspension occurred by means of an injunction granted to Deputy Flávio Bolsonaro (PP-RJ).
The letter, signed by the president of the committee, Deputy Luiz Couto (PT-PB), calls the attention to the contradiction between the judicial decision, which contemplates the isolated position of one congressman, and the approval of the law at the Legislative Assembly, which obtained most of the votes of states’ deputies: “When one weights the legitimacy, on the one hand, of the decision of the Legislative Assembly of the State of Rio de Janeiro, which created that Law according to its wide majority, and on the other hand, of the reaction of one deputy who was defeated in that legislative decision, who appealed to Judiciary Power, it is evident where the will of those constituted to legislate for the people stands”, says that document.
Quota students’ performance
The text also mentions data from researches on the quality of higher education. “The argument that the granting of quotas harms the merit is a lie. At the State’s University of Rio de Janeiro (UERJ), a recent research pointed out that, after the first year of studies, 48.9% of the quota students were approved in all disciplines, while only 47% of non-quota students did reach that performance.” The letter also shows that, at the University of Brasília (UnB), according to the grades’ scale adopted by that institution, which goes from 0 to 5, in the classes concluding their courses in 2008, the non-quota students had a general average of 2.3, while the quota holders obtained 3.9.
That protest results from a proposal raised in a public hearing on racial diversity in the banking labor market, performed by that committee on Wednesday (27).
Luiz Couto affirms that the suspension of that Law is a retrocession and that affirmative actions are revealing themselves more and more effective in reducing social inequalities. “We are sure that that law will prevail again soon. The institutions which adopted the quota system and which evaluated it are showing how important it is to promote equity, especially regarding the racial issue”, affirms the deputy.
Prevailing in 2010
The merit of the lawsuit will still be judged by the Floor of the Court, in a date which has not yet been set. But, in response to a request from the State of Rio de Janeiro, and from UERJ, the magistrates of TJRJ decided, with the majority of votes, that the application of effects of that injunction which suspended the quotas will only prevail from the 2010 entry exam on.
The magistrates understood that there would not be enough time for the amendments in the public notice on the exam, whose tests are set for June 26th, and counts already with approximately 70,000 applicants. “We have to observe social, political and economic principles in our decisions. We cannot apply the effectiveness of the injunction in any exam which is already underway. That would correspond to imminent danger to juridical safety of the students involved in the procedures”, explained the rapporteur on that process, Supreme Court Judge Sérgio Cavalieri.
From the newsroom/RCA
With information from the Committee on Human Rights
Translation - Positive Idiomas Ltda