Affirmative Action In Brazil Hot New Topic

In 2002 Rio de Janeiro became the first Brazilian state to adopt quotas for Afro-Brazilian students in institutions of higher education. The last country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery, Black activists hoped that the country was finally coming to terms with its bitter legacy. However,  just eight years later, affirmative-action policies—which have since been adopted by scores of other Brazilian universities on behalf of the country’s most disadvantaged groups—could be ruled unconstitutional by the country’s Federal Supreme Court.

The government’s census statistics show that 49.7 percent of Brazilians consider themselves white. Of the rest, 6.9 percent say they are black; 42.6 percent say they are pardo, a Portuguese term for people of mixed African and European descent; and 0.8 percent are categorized as “other,” which includes those who claim indigenous or Asian descent.

The numbers show that the scales are anything but equal. Only 2 to 3 percent of students at public universities are black, and a minority are of mixed race, according to Ms. Slhessarenko and the Rev. David Santos, a Roman Catholic friar and executive director of Educafro, a nonprofit that helps prepare minorities for university entrance exams.

Proponents of racial quotas, like Brother Santos, say they are necessary because Afro-Brazilians lag behind in almost every health, social, and education indicator. Getting them into universities, he argues, is the quickest way to begin addressing those distortions and to try and provide some indemnity for 388 years of slavery.

Opponents, meanwhile, argue that quotas constitute a form of reverse racism, and that they fuel racial tensions where none existed before.

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