Federal universities do not meet quotas for professors – 10/14/2023 – Education

More than half of federal universities do not comply with the affirmative action law in teaching competitions, data from the National School of Public Administration show. In the first five years of the legislation’s validity, established in 2014, 34 institutions did not register any quota professors.

Only 11 universities have an affirmative action admission rate above 1%. The data corresponds to the period from 2014 to 2019 and was compiled in the Republic in Data panel, from Instituto República.org, which works to expand discussions about the public sector in Brazil.

The quota law 12,990 (2014), which establishes a reservation of 20% of places for black people in federal public competitions, is valid for ten years and must be reevaluated in 2024.

According to Flavia Rios, a researcher at the Brazilian Center for Analysis and Planning, the situation has changed little in the last five years. The number of black teachers and those entering through affirmative action is still lower than expected.

She says she attributes this to the institutions’ resistance to adapting to the law. In general, competitions for professors at federal universities are split, with one vacancy per department. There is no room for the 20% reserve.

“There is a strong institutional racism, which affects choices and organizational designs. If the institution realizes that there is a loophole and thinks that the law does not apply, it folds its arms. Nobody talks about how to implement it”, he says.

Professor of occupational therapy at the Ceilândia campus of UnB (University of Brasília), Magno Nunes, 31, was approved in the affirmative action competition in 2020. He says that, despite some advances, black teachers are still a minority in his department.

This impacts the work of the few black and brown teachers, according to Nunes. With the increase in the number of quota students, there is a greater search for teachers who have an affinity with racial issues. However, there is a lack of professionals dedicated to this topic.

“I feel a little alone, because the students demand it, but there is no one to articulate these agendas. It ends up being the black teacher’s task to talk about race”, he says.

In a note, UnB informs that 23.7% of its teaching staff are self-declared black or mixed race. In August, the university approved a resolution that regulates procedures for reserving places with the aim of making law enforcement more effective.

Flavia Rios says that the same situation occurs at UFF (Universidade Federal Fluminense), where she directs the Institute of Human Sciences and Philosophy. The first quota teachers only joined in 2021, according to her, after pressure from students and teachers for more reserved places.

In other institutions across the country, student movements and teachers’ unions demand compliance with the law.

“The few black professors are overloaded. My classes are overcrowded and the number of students I have to guide is sometimes double that of a white professor. Students want other topics and the university does not have this qualification”, he states.

The lack of black people in the teaching staff also affects what will be taught in the courses, from the subjects to the choice of bibliography, according to Michael França, coordinator of the Racial Studies Center at Insper and columnist for Sheet.

Black and brown teachers tend to address more topics related to diversity, with increasing demand.

Furthermore, without professors as a reference, black undergraduate students may not see an academic career as a possibility.

For Flavia Rios, universities should consider reserving all vacancies offered across all departments to comply with the law. This is what happens at UFSB (Federal University of Southern Bahia), where 7.5% of professors joined through affirmative action, the highest rate among all federal universities.

There is no area restriction for quota holders to register. According to Joana Angélica Guimarães, dean of UFSB and the first black woman to hold the position at a federal university, there are departments that resist accepting affirmative action students.

“There are colleagues who think the quota law is nonsense. Often, the unit that will receive the quota holder thinks they are being penalized, as if they were someone with less capacity, which is not true”, he says.

The university organizes discussions with professors with the aim of reinforcing the importance of the quota policy. According to Joana, this increased the number of supporters of affirmative action and other diversity policies.

She states that the UFSB intends to increase the reserve of places for black and brown people in teaching competitions to 30%. Today, around 20% of the university’s professors are black.

UFSB was one of the most affected by funding cuts at federal institutions in 2019. The lack of competitions stagnated the number of quota students there and at other universities.

Economic crises, such as those that have occurred in recent years, reduce the number of selection processes for new teachers and keep the vulnerable population away from public careers, says Michael França, from Insper.

“If a person comes from a family with high wealth and wants to become a teacher, it’s fine to wait a few years and take the exam when the situation improves. But if the person comes from a disadvantaged background, this is impossible”, he declares.

In the Chamber, a proposal is being processed to extend the validity of law 12,990 until 2034, with a reevaluation scheduled for that same year. Experts argue that, in 2024, the percentage of teacher quotas in universities should increase to at least 30%.

For Flavia Rios, there needs to be oversight by the federal government in order to ensure that the law is being complied with. When contacted, the Ministry of Racial Equality did not respond if it planned any action to verify the application of quotas.

“We need to ask ourselves why there is no penalty for universities, if they are acting incorrectly. It was necessary for institutions to send reports to the federal government about what they did in the last ten years”, he says. “If half the universities can enforce the law, why can’t the others?”