Life
Brazil: Supreme court votes to back Affirmative Action programs in education
Brazil’s Supreme Court justices strongly voiced opinions that affirmative action is the best means of combating inequality that has lingered for centuries.
“From this decision onward, Brazil has one more reason to look in the mirror of history and not blush with shame,” Supreme Court Justice Carlos Britto said after last week’s 10-0 vote supporting racial quotas.
His colleague Carmen Lucia Rocha added: “It’s better to have a society in which everyone is free to be whatever they want. Quotas are one step in a society where this doesn’t naturally occur.”
Former President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who ushered in most of the federal affirmative action programs during his eight years in office starting in 2003, applauded the rulings.
“I’m certain that the policy of racial quotas, which the Supreme Court unanimously endorsed, will help make access to higher education more just,” Silva said Friday during a speech given after he received honorary degrees from five Rio de Janeiro federal universities.
The Supreme Court is also expected to rule soon on a motion filed in 2009 by a white student who argues that although he scored high on his college entrance exam for the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul, his spot was taken by a student who scored lower but was admitted based on a racial quota.
Norma Odara, a 20-year-old journalism student at Mackenzie University in Sao Paulo, considers herself black, though her mother is white, and her youthful face embodies Brazil’s mixed heritage.
