A court decision prevented a black candidate from taking up a teaching position on the medical course at the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA) after having passed a competition held in December 2023.
Lorena Pinheiro Figueiredo, who self-identifies as black, was approved as the first candidate in the field of otorhinolaryngology, but was not appointed after a court decision filed by a white candidate. The competition offered 30 vacancies for 28 areas of knowledge.
“I would be the first professor approved by the quota law at the Bahia School of Medicine, but I was prevented by a court injunction from assuming this role because the candidate from the general competition went to court in May to request this position,” said Lorena in a video published on her social media.
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In a statement, UFBA stated that the sentence was signed without the university being summoned to comment and that the Vice-Rectory of Human Resources became aware of the process during the decision enforcement phase.
The resolution determined that the higher education institution “call upon the petitioner, ranked 1st, for appointment, possession and exercise, in order to assume the only vacancy open for the position”, and also refrain from “calling upon and appointing quota candidates for the disputed vacancy”.
“Even after the negotiations with UFBA, all the explanations from the legal department responsible for UFBA respecting the affirmative action policy and respecting the quota law, a judge granted this opinion violating my rights, preventing a quota holder from taking up the position,” stated Lorena.
Furthermore, the university said it had prepared the subsidies for the appeal of the decision. The process is ongoing.
“It is not enough to have passed the competition, it was not enough for me to have been placed first in the first stage, blindly, scoring 9.5 in the theoretical test, it was not enough for my name to be published in the Official Gazette as the first, because that was undone”, stated the candidate.
Lorena Pinheiro is an otorhinolaryngologist and has a PhD in post-Covid smell loss. The candidate said she wants to work in the SUS with teaching, research and outreach, she stated on her social media.
THE CNN tried to contact the Federal Court and the candidate who filed the lawsuit, but received no response.
Quota law for competitions
The Federal University of Bahia stated that it began to comply with the Quota law in all its competitions, considering all vacancies in the notice and “not applying any fractionation on specialties or areas, as of December 2018”.
Previously, the law was only applied to areas with three or more vacancies, the university explained. The percentage of 20% of candidates reserved by the notice is always observed in the overall ranking of the competition, it stated.
“After being approved, the self-declared black candidate who is best ranked in his/her area of knowledge is reclassified in a single list, according to his/her final grade, and will occupy the next vacancy in his/her area of knowledge.”
After the results of the competition, candidates who self-declare as black are still evaluated by the hetero-identification procedure, by committee, so that their self-declaration is verified and confirmed, explained UFBA.
This content was originally published in Black candidate loses teaching position at UFBA after lawsuit filed by white competitor on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil
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