Unlike the US, the STF limits the euphoria of the far right – 07/03/2023 – Michael França

The last week of June was not just any week. There were at least two events that will have social and political consequences in the coming years.

The first took place on June 29, with the decision of the American Supreme Court to reverse the decision of affirmative action in universities in the United States, an option adopted since 1978, when the court authorized the system of positive discrimination in favor of Afro-Brazilians. Americans. Later, there was an expansion to other underrepresented minorities.

At the time, the judges set aside arguments linked to historical reparation and highlighted the value of diversity. Interestingly, part of this discourse was the argument that affirmative action could generate benefits for whites.

Despite the adoption of this mechanism, many US universities have never been a reflection of American society. In part, this is due to the fact that several of them offer considerable advantages to the children of donors and former students, which ends up generating, similarly to what is seen in other corners of the world, a scheme of hereditary mediocrity that privileges white and rich.

The irrelevance of race in the law does not make it indifferent in life. Judge Sonia Sotomayor argues that the commitment to color blindness, in an endemically racially segregated society, will have as a background the decrease in the inclusion of minorities in American higher education.

The numbers suggest that Sotomayor is correct. In 1998, Proposition 209 eliminated affirmative action based on race in California state university selection processes. As a result, enrollments for African Americans plummeted.

Although the University of California has already spent more than half a billion dollars (R$ 2.3 billion) to try to reverse the process, the diversity there continues to decrease. A similar scenario was also observed at the University of Michigan, after the referendum that led to the banning of affirmative action in 2006.

The Supreme Court decision is a legacy of the Donald Trump administration. After the appointment of three magistrates by the former American president, the Court, which already had a conservative majority, became even more active against minorities.

In the case of affirmative action, its impact should not be underestimated. It is possible that the understanding of not using race as a selection criterion spreads quickly to other sectors and is imitated by other countries. In particular, such a scenario tends to excite the ultra-right.

Another remarkable event of the last week of June took place in the Brazilian political scenario. One day after the decision of the American Supreme Court, the TSE (Superior Electoral Court) decreed, on June 30, the ineligibility of Jair Bolsonaro for eight years. A symbol of the rise of the extreme right in the country, the defense of the former president is left to resort to the institution he has always attacked: the STF (Federal Supreme Court).

In recent years, Bolsonaro’s recurrent attacks on the Federal Supreme Court did not happen by chance. Most ministers were appointed by Lula and Dilma Rousseff. This fact made the captain of the extreme right argue that they had a bias to the left. It is to this “left institution” that the “Trump of the Tropics” has to resort to define its political future.

The text is a tribute to the song “Sophisticated Honky”, by Orgone.

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