Universities vary model for identifying black quota students – 03/16/2024 – Education

Heteroidentification boards at universities, which assess whether students who benefit from black quotas are actually black or brown, have gained ground in an attempt to avoid fraud, but there is no consensus on the model to be adopted.

In-person interviews, video conferencing, photo analysis sent by the student or taken during the entrance exams are the methods adopted by some of the main Brazilian institutions.

The most recent debate about these commissions has erupted since the revelation, by Sheetof two cases of USP candidates who had their enrollment cancelled, one in law and the other in medicine, because they were not considered mixed race by the university, which evaluated them by photo and, later, by video.

This year alone, USP received 204 appeals from students who competed for the 2,067 vacancies reserved for black, brown and indigenous people. Only 51 were granted. After the controversy involving two of the most popular courses in the country, rector Carlos Carlotti Junior promised that the exams will be in person.

In addition to the discussion about the legitimacy of verification, even among universities that adopt and defend the procedure, there are divergent opinions about what the role of the examination boards is and what are the best criteria for analyzing candidates.

“At Unesp, these boys would be considered brown. We would certainly approve them,” he told Sheet Maria Valéria Barbosa, president of the Central Commission for Investigating Self-Declarations of Black and Brown People at Unesp. For this evaluation, she was based on photos of the boys published in the news reports. Sheet.

“We have inclusion as a principle, not exclusion. This year, of the more than 1,200 students analyzed through photos, we only called 30 to videoconference [o vídeo é usado quando a foto gera dúvida] and we approved them all”, reported the professor and researcher in the area of ​​sociology of education, with an emphasis on the theme of black people.

Why were newsstands created?

To register under the quotas for black people, the candidate — who also passes through public education and income filters — must declare himself black or mixed race. In the first years of the vacancy reservation policy, implemented by the 2012 Quota Law, self-declaration was sufficient.

With the emergence of fraud reports, universities began the formation of hetero-identification boards — identification made by other people. Racial verification takes place by phenotype, that is, by the set of observable traits, such as skin color, hair and the shape of the mouth and nose.

Doubts arise precisely in the case of self-declared browns. This group has become, in recent years, the majority of the Brazilian population, more than 45.3%, while the black population is 10.2% (whites are 43.5%, indigenous people, 0.8%, and yellows , 0.4%).

Just like USP, Unesp carries out photo verification. “Before, we had to send teachers from the commission to various cities, to check the complaints in person”, says the educator. Between 2014 and 2018, 57 students were dismissed.

With the change, criteria and training for panel members were reinforced to identify, for example, the “broad phenotype” of brown people. “It is necessary to consider regional nuances. A person seen as mixed race in one city or state may not be seen in the same way in another location”, explains the educator.

At Unicamp, hetero-identification is also done by photo, but since last year it has been the university itself that has done one, during the entrance exam, via tablet. The objective is to obtain a standard in terms of lighting, in addition to avoiding the use of filters. With the new system, more than 90% of the 1,700 applications from self-declared black candidates were validated. Only 12 were inconclusive and sent to videoconference. They all ended up being approved.

In the case of places reserved for Provão Paulista and Enem, the photos are still sent by the students themselves.

“We are improving the process with the formation of the panel”, stated professor Gilberto Alexandre Sobrinho, president of Unicamp’s Ethnic-Racial Diversity Advisory Committee. “We realized, in practice, that it is going well, because questions and judicialization have become minimal,” he said.

This year, in total, the panel validated 2,032 candidates and invalidated 15. Of those invalidated, 8 filed appeals and only 2 ended up rejected at the end of the process.

Sobrinho says that in-person verification would harm students who live far from the university and have financial difficulties — the same claim made by USP to use online banking for Provão and Enem students. “We have candidates from all over Brazil. It is not viable to think about displacements like this, especially with the most vulnerable.”

Researcher defends in-person assessment

For Rodrigo Ednilson de Jesus, president of the Permanent Committee on Affirmative Actions and Social Inclusion at UFMG, in-person verification is the best model.

“There is, without a doubt, an issue of cost and logistics involved, but we argue that in-person verification guarantees more security for both the candidate and the panel”, he told Sheet. “With photos and videos there will always be interference from light, image quality, etc.”

Jesus participated in the implementation of the panel at the federal university of Minas Gerais and, based on this experience, wrote the book “Quem Quer (Pode) Ser Negro no Brasil?” (Authentic).

Without discussing the merits of USP’s decision in the recent contested cases, he draws attention to what he considers a contradiction: “The same people who criticize USP for vetoing boys for photos start from the assumption that the university is wrong, also looking at the photos,” he says.

The researcher also argues that, when in doubt, one should not necessarily think of fraud or bad faith and that the best way is to approve the candidate. Sobrinho, from Unicamp, and Barbosa, from Unesp, agree. “These boys are not there to deceive us”, argues the educator.

In the opinion of Luiz Augusto Campos, coordinator of Gemaa (Multidisciplinary Affirmative Action Study Group) at Uerj, transparency is needed in relation to the choice of members, the methods and criteria of the panels.

“It is also important to carry out the exams as quickly as possible, ideally as soon as the list of those approved in the entrance exam comes out”, he stated. “This way, there is more time for resources and for classes to start now with the shareholders approved by the boards.”

He defends that more data be collected about these university committees, in order to support the national debate.