STF invalidates Amazonas law that reserves 80% of entrance exam places for local students

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) invalidated this Thursday (19) the Amazonas law that reserved 80% of places in the state university entrance exam for students who had completed high school entirely in public or private schools in the state. By majority vote, the Court understood that this type of quota violates the constitutional guarantee that all citizens receive equal treatment.

The ministers analyzed the extraordinary appeal (RE) 614873 presented by the State University of Amazonas (UEA) against the decision of the local Court of Justice (TJ-AM) that guaranteed a place at the institution to a student who, despite achieving a sufficient grade to enter the engineering course, he had only attended the 3rd year of high school in the state.

The UEA argued that the quota provided for in state law 2,894/04 would be justified because “state students would be at a disadvantage in relation to students from large urban centers and that its implementation is within the scope of the autonomy of the federated entity and the university”, it reported the STF.

In 2020, the case’s then rapporteur, Minister Marco Aurélio – currently retired – voted to partially grant the appeal. The judge considered the quota constitutional, but set the limit for reserved places at 50%. In this Thursday’s session (19), minister Alexandre de Moraes presented the winning thesis.

For Moraes, although the quota policy “aimed at correcting socioeconomic distortions, it is not possible to create unfounded discrimination to favor only people residing in the region”. The trial was expected to have general repercussions, however, the panel decided to withdraw the status of general repercussion of the appeal and limit the solution to the Amazonas case. In cases of general repercussion, the solution established by the Supreme Court must be applied to similar cases in courts of other instances.