Mário Theodoro says that it makes no sense to talk about social quotas but about quotas to black people.

The role of the system of racial quotas is to create a black intellectual elite, and not to end inequalities. "Quotas are used to shape a black intellectual elite. To color our elite that is pale," claims the director of Research, Technical Cooperation and International Policy of the Institute of Applied Economic Research (Ipea), Mário Theodoro.

In a public hearing promoted by the Committee on Human Rights and Minorities, on Wednesday (18th) to discuss the policy of quotas for black people, Theodoro said that the so-called social quotas for students from public schools are anti-republican.

"The public school has to be as good as the private one, otherwise we will have full citizenship for students of private school and half citizenship to those of public school", he added.

Equity
Nelson Inocêncio, a member of the Council of Defense of the Rights of the Black People of the Secretariat of Justice, Human Rights and Citizenship of the Federal District, has similar opinion. For him, quotas are not related to the principle of equality, but to equity.

The function of the quotas, he said, is to establish a point of departure less unequal to the different groups. "People treated unequally need different policies", he pointed out.

Mário Theodoro believes that the "virulence" in the discussion of racial quotas "has only one explanation - the quality of the Brazilian public university ". He emphasized that the Brazilian state is recognized as a bad service provider, but the public university is considered excellent. "This is what the white elites do not want to share", he observed.

About the argument that the quota policy may compromise the quality of education, Nelson Inocêncio argued that the purpose of this mechanism is not to assess the ability of individuals, but to ensure opportunities.

Theodoro pointed out also that "most of our elite who graduated from U.S. universities have used the system of quotas for foreign students, and nobody talked about meritocracy."

Performance
The experience of the University of Brasília (UnB), which adopted the system of racial quotas in 2004, attests that the model does not interfere with the quality of education, declared Deborah Santos, coordinator of the Center of Black Coexistence of the university.

Although researches on the performance of students who entered by the quota system have not been completed, she informed that one of the results, for example, is that the dropout of these students is much lower than that of whites.

Also according to the coordinator, among the 3700 students who benefited from the policy, 179 have completed their courses, and another 300 are expected to graduate later this year. "Some of these students are completing their studies before the four years they would normally last", she added.

Reporting - Maria Neves
Edition - Newton Araújo
Translation – Adriana Resende