Access and Aftermath: What Racial Quotas Changed in Brazil’s Universities with Luiz Augusto Campos

Alex Usher: Hi everyone. I'm Alex Usher, and this is The World of Higher Education Podcast.
Brazil exited the age of slavery 135 years ago. It remains a multiracial society today. But for much of the 20th century, Brazil suffered an enormous bout of amnesia. From being one of the last societies on earth to give up slavery, it immediately began touting itself as a place where color didn't matter, that it was a post-racial society.
But then about 30 years ago, things changed. Race — or more accurately, race and inequality — became a much more prominent subject of public debate, and various measures were brought in to lessen racial inequality. In higher education, Brazil did not take the path of the United States, that is affirmative action. Instead it went through what India did with respect to caste: hard, fixed numerical admissions quotas.
Today we're gonna look at how this policy's worked out, and join me to do so is Luiz Augusto Campos. He's a professor of sociology and political science at the State University of Rio de Janeiro, and he's a co-editor of a recent book on quotas in Brazilian higher education. I won't inflict you with my poor Brazilian, but it translate as The Impact of Cost: Two Decades of Affirmative Actions in Brazilian Higher Education.
Luiz and I had a great discussion about how Brazilian admissions scores came to be and how they've changed higher education. Of particular interest to me is the way that these quotas were imposed in some of the country's most elite institutions, and how the arrival of these quotas has managed to make policies of free tuition at these institutions much less regressive. But enough for me, over to Luiz.
Luiz, before we start talking about quotas in higher education, let's, paint a picture of race in Brazil. So, you know, like the United States, Brazil was a colonial slave state, one where emancipation didn't happen until 1888, but for a long time there was kind of a myth that Brazil had become some sort of post-racial society. People didn't see race. So what are the politics of race like in Brazil and what's changed over, say the last 50 years?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Well, that's true, and I can say that almost everything changed last years, last decades, uh, at the beginning of the 20th century, Brazil was portrayed as a racial democracy, right? An idea that, uh, people in Brazil don't see race and there is no racism. And it's, it's, it's complicated to understand how a, a country that was completely slave based in the past create this myth. And this myth was. Pretty successful in the sense that the biggest part of Brazilian population used to believe in that.
Um, it's connected to a vision of our slavery. So in the past, people used to say that our slavery was a kind of soft slavery in comparison to other country. It's not true historians show today that it's, it's not true. Uh, but anyway, it was how people see that. And it, it was mostly because of miscegenation myth. The idea that every Brazilian was a mixed race person, and if every Brazilian was a mixed race person, there is no place for, for racism because you cannot practice racism against someone that is mixed race, uh, as everybody.
Um. So, but after kind of 50, 60 years, this national myth started to change. First of all, because of, um, black movement that started to denounce Brazilian racism, uh, but mostly because of data around racial inequality. So we have, historically we have pretty good data about race in Brazil. It's a kind of a legacy from, uh, the 18th century. Um, you know, the, uh, the census and all these, these numbers about race. And these numbers start showing that although we have these racial democracy myth, racial inequality in Brazil, uh, less as an important thing until, you know, the end of, uh, the nineties. So, uh, I think that these two reasons contributed to, to change or, or to change the belief in, in the racial democracy Myth.
Alex Usher: And just to be clear, when, when, uh, you talk about data on race, how is race classified? I don't think it's just white and black, right? Like there's a, how does that work?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Uh, we have change in the history, changed, but, uh, we work more with five racial categories. So even today, uh, the census of Brazil is pretty good, so if the, the guy from the census go to your house, he will ask you about your race in, in five categories, black, uh, brown, white, yellow that is connected to Asian, Brazilian people, and Indigenous that's more connected not to people with indigenous ancestry, but uh, with indigenous people in the sense that people that lives, uh, indigenous communities.
Alex Usher: Got it. Okay. And so within higher education now, how, did race historically affect access? Like how big were the participation gaps between races prior to the introduction of, of quotas?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Well, in the sense of access, the, uh, the changes are, are huge. So at the beginning of the nineties, uh, white people were like 70% of, people in, in public higher education, because it's important to say that we have these public system and the private system.
Alex Usher: and and the public system is the more selective and the public system is, is, is, uh, yeah. I mean, that's where people want to go because it's a, it's a more prestigious sector. Is that fair?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Yes, yes. Although the private system is bigger, it's really bigger than the, the public system. The public system is, is like selective better and, and so on. Uh, but at the beginning of the nineties, we used to have like 70% of, of enrollments, uh, of white people in the public system, and it was really unfair because, um, public system is completely free tuition, so we don't pay anything.
Uh, so the system work like, uh, the government take taxes from the biggest part of the population that is brown, black and, and poor, and like invest in the education of white people that is, um, you know, the biggest part from middle classes or, or from the elites.
Alex Usher: The, the 70% of public school, uh, higher education students are white. How does that compare to the population as a whole?
Luiz Augusto Campos: The population in Brazil, usually we have like half and a half. So, but in the time, in the beginning of the nineties, uh, like 57% of people self-declared white. Uh, and they were like 70%. But it's, it's, it's interesting because actually, uh, the racial classifications in Brazil, the amount of people that, uh, self classified as white and, and black and brown changed also.
But just to, to, answer your question, uh, now we have less than 50% of white people enrollments in the, the higher public education system. So black and brown people are the majority of of the students in the public system.
Alex Usher: Interesting. Okay, so let's think about how we got there in, in the 1980s and 1990s, as you say, racial politics started to change across Brazil. People realized this wasn't really a, a racial democracy. How did quotas become the means to achieve racial justice rather than say affirmative action as practiced in the United States at the time?
Luiz Augusto Campos: It's a really complex process. It's, it's not so planned. Uh, first of all, we have, the first, bills. It was like, uh, proposals from black movement, mostly from an important, uh, black leader in Brazil, Abdias do Nascimento, and he like created some, uh, proposals in, he was at the time a congressman and he proposed like a system of affirmative action. Mostly based on quotas, but it was like a huge system with a lot of things involved, like, there was, uh, articles talking about money, giving money to black people and, and other things. Uh, but the idea of quotas was there, uh, at the beginning of the eighties actually, when he was, um, a congressman.
After that we have in Brazil, uh, an important movement of preparatory, uh, courses to the university. So in Brazil, to get into the public system, you just need to do a standard test like, uh, you know, a test to go to, to the university. So, this movement, that was a political movement of black people, uh, creating these preparatory courses to black people, brown people, and poor people.
Actually the first case of quota, started in my university, the state University of Rio de Janeiro. Uh, it started during the two thousands, at the beginning of two thousands. And the quota system was the system that people adopt in this, in my university.
This story is really complex because the congressmen that approved, actually he was a counselor, the counselor that approved the system was a right wing counselor. So the story shows that he was like searching for things to propose, to approve, you know, that people, politics, they, they politicians, they want to approve bills and he just created this quota system. But from this point to now, the other universities, uh, started to, to copy this quota system. Now we have probably the biggest racial quota system in the world.
Alex Usher: So how did we go from a situation in the eighties and nineties where you had a few institutions experimenting, as you say, with with quotas, to a point where the federal government actually mandates, quotas for federal universities in 2012. What's the run up to that decision and, and what is the current quota? How does it work, the existing quota system?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Actually, it's a complex history because at the beginning, uh, the reaction against quotas in Brazil, uh, was really fierce. So even, uh, intellectuals and celebrities that used to support, anti-racist, uh, fight, even them it started to criticize the quota system. But at the same time there was, uh, important groups supporting this, this kind of policies. And, the government didn't support it at the beginning.
Uh, we have to remember it was Lula's government, the two, uh, Lula mandates. Lula at the beginning was favor to, in favor of this kind of policies, but because of the controversy, the government starts saying, you know, we have to wait, it's a really controversial, uh, issue. Uh, we will not support a bill about quotas in the higher education system.
On the other hand, uh, Lula started, uh, a really, strong reform of the higher education system. And inside that reform he included some incentives to diversity policies. Uh, and for the university, it was easier to use a quota because a quota in bureaucratic uh, terms, it's easier to apply. You know, you just reserve an amount of, space, of slots and you just do that.
So that's one of the reasons that universities started to use this quota system. And the black movement was really important. The black movement really created, um organized a scheme to to incentivize universities to adopt that. And in Brazil, you know, universities are really autonomous to do that.
Alex Usher: And, and my understanding is, is that the quota system is actually kind of a two level thing. The, the main quota is it's 50% of students have to come from public secondary schools, and
then there may be race-based quotas underneath that, but they change a little bit depending on where you are in the country. Because I assume
that the, the racial population is not, it's not, uh, homogenous across the, the, the entire country.
Luiz Augusto Campos: Yes. Yes. That's it. So the, first of all, uh, it's important to say that Brazilian has a social economic quota system. The first criteria is, uh, students from public schools, uh, in average public schools in Brazil are not so good as private schools. Uh, you don't have to pay to public schools, but the quality of the, um, the quality of the schools is not, is not so good. So the first criteria is 50% for public schools. Inside that criteria, you have another social economical criteria that is people from, uh, lower classes, so we have this 25% for people to lower classes and 25 percent, uh, to people that is not from lower classes.
And inside these two quotas, you have racial quotas. But as you said, there is a variation according to the state where the university is.
Alex Usher: Okay, we're gonna take a short break. We'll be right back.
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Alex Usher: And we're back. Okay, so it's been a couple of decades now since, uh, quota has been in place and 13 years since the introduction of the federal law. You mentioned there's been a significant improvement in, uh, you know, sort of racial access rates, a narrowing of the access gap, if you will. How significant is the change?
Luiz Augusto Campos: In terms of, of access, it's really significant. So, now we can say that in Brazil we have, uh a black and brown university. So if you go to the university in Brazil, you see a lot of black and brown people, um, in the campuses. But actually we have problems too. We have limits. So if the university system, the higher education system, the public system changed, uh, in terms of racial and, and social economic, terms, um, at the same time, the public system is really, um, is really small now in comparison to the private systems. So, at the beginning, during the nineties, uh, like the public system was almost 50% of the system, of the entire higher education system, and now it's just 20% of the system.
Alex Usher: Mm-hmm. What about graduation rates? So, I mean, once it's one thing to get to school, but as you said, the, the students from public secondary schools might not have the same kind of preparation. So has the system been able to adjust to make sure that, um, racial minorities are, are, are graduating at the same rate as white students?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Yes. In terms of graduation, uh, we have similar, uh, rates of graduation when we are talking about black and brown compared to to white people. Uh, but we have still differences because the entrance, although we have quotas, the entrance is not the same in the each, in the each major. So, uh, still in Brazil, the entrance in the more, uh, selected course are less than the entrance in the more not so selected course.
Alex Usher: Right. So there's still stratification within the system.
Luiz Augusto Campos: Yes, there is because, as you said, as, as the racial quota is inside the socioeconomic quota, actually the racial quota is around, uh, a half of the amount of Brazilian black and brown population.
Uh, so we have like courses and, and majors where we have 50, 60% of black and brown people, enrollments. And we have courses like, uh, law school or, or engineer, engineering school where you just have 20%, uh, 21%. And it's important to say that not all slots are filled with people from quotas because, you know, schools and universities, they have, bureaucratic means to create like a special tests or, or limits to, to the working of the, the racial quotas.
Alex Usher: So based on your overview of quotas and and their results, is there anything you think could be improved in the system?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Yes, there is a lot of things to be improved. Um, well, we have a new law in 2023, a law that, kind of, changed small things in the law from, uh, 2012. It's a really good law I think, uh, it, it corrected many elements, but we have other things that we have to, to improve. Uh, the first of all is the data.
Uh, so in Brazil, the access to data about race actually today is worse than in the past. Uh, it's connected to some bureaucratic issues. We have a new law to protect data it was created against or, or to regulate big tax. Uh, but it's not working to regulate big tax, it's working to regulate like research.
So the access to data is pretty, is pretty worse today than, than in comparison to the past. Uh, but when we are talking about, the system, the system of entrance in Brazil is really complicated. So if you are a student, you do like these standard tests. The name is ENEM, the national standard test to get into the higher education, and you have to choose, like in these unified system, uh, something around 6,000 uh, majors to do. In this system where you, you, you choose this, this amount of, of majors to do, it's hard to fill all the quota system because, you know, we have this system, but inside the system we have other quotas.
The quota system is more complex than these major quotas. We have smaller quotas. Uh, we have a quota for people with capabilities, but this quota is inside of older quotas. So we have like 16 groups and we, when we combine that to a unified system of selection with 6,000 courses, it become really complicated to fill each quota. So we have a lot of things to, to fix.
Alex Usher: And what do you think the future is for quotas in Brazilian higher education? Is there a limit to how far, quotas can help narrow the access gap? And can you imagine a future in which quotas wouldn't be needed any longer?
Luiz Augusto Campos: Well, I can imagine this future. I can, I desire this future actually. I think that we are all working for a world without quotas, that quotas is not necessary. But actually now it's really necessary. I don't see now that uh, the quota system in the higher education is under fire. Actually, it's not, but the public higher education system is under fire and actually the entire higher education is under fire because there is this kind of discourse in the society and it's most, uh, created by the far, uh, right wing that is higher education is not necessary, that you just have to work hard.
And, uh, and, mostly about public universities, there is a huge attack against, public universities in Brazil. Uh, so people say that public universities are useless, that they are like left wing, extreme left wing places and it's not true at all. But just to answer your question, I think that quota system is now really, um, it's stable in Brazil. It's not on the fire, but it supports, you know, higher education in other institutions they are on the fire. And actually I think that the important thing is that we have to think how to, expand the affirmative action system to other, places, mostly to the labor market and to institutions where the entrance of black and brown people is not so good even now.
Alex Usher: Luiz Augusto Campos, thank you so much for being with us today.
Luiz Augusto Campos: Thank you. It's my pleasure.
Alex Usher: And it just remains for me to thank our excellent producers, Sam Pufek and Tiffany MacLennan, and you, our readers and listeners for joining us. If you have any questions about today's episode or suggestions for future ones, don't hesitate to get in contact at podcast higheredstrategy.com Next week is a break week, and I have no idea who's joining us the week after. We have so many people to speak to over the next few weeks, but join us. I'm sure it'll be interesting. Bye for now.