Court orders USP to reinstate enrollment of student who was not considered brown by panel

Judge Randolfo Ferraz de Campos, from the 14th Public Finance Court of São Paulo, granted this Monday (4) an injunction that determines the reinstatement of Glauco Dalalio do Livramento's registration. The student was not considered mixed race by the hetero-identification committee at the University of São Paulo (USP) and had lost the right to enroll at the institution's Faculty of Law.

USP now has 72 hours to comply with the decision and allow the teenager to start classes regularly.

Last week, a request from the defense team argued that the assessment of candidates' heteroidentification did not follow egalitarian criteria since students coming from the university's own entrance exam would be evaluated in person, while those coming from other entrance exams, in the case of Glauco, would do the process remotely.

The decision accepted the request stating that Glauco was harmed by going through the hetero-identification commission remotely since “images generated by electronic equipment are not necessarily faithful to reality”, explains the magistrate.

In the results of the hetero-identification committee, the student was described as a candidate with “light skin, sharp mouth and lips, straight hair, not presenting the set of phenotypic characteristics of a black person”.

The judge disagreed with the panel's decision that did not classify the student as mixed race. “It cannot even be forgotten that the author is simply the son of a person of the black race, and possibly images that sometimes favor him, sometimes not, in the conclusion of belonging to the black race, whether black or brown, do not seem to be a reasonable criterion in context like this, let alone for remote measurement, as was done here”, states the judge.

Alcimar Mondillo, defense lawyer, celebrated the decision, saying that justice had been restored. “It was the result we expected, as we were convinced of Glauco’s right to enroll,” she said. When contacted by Estadão, USP did not comment on the injunction.

Glauco was approved in the institution's Law course based on the Provão Paulista entrance exam, competing in the vacancies reserved for black, mixed-race and indigenous students. In this modality, students must go through a committee that ratifies or not the self-declaration made by the candidate.

Another case

In another controversial case last week, USP denied the enrollment of 18-year-old medical student Alisson dos Santos Rodrigues, after the hetero-identification committee did not accept his self-declaration as being mixed race.