The 2024 graduation of the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP, in Portuguese) medical class was marked by a historical and symbolic milestone. It included the first group of students who entered the course through the ethnic-racial quota policy in 2019.
As one of the top three universities in Latin America and the second most renowned in Brazil, UNICAMP ranks among the top 20% of the most recognized institutions globally. However, its history is also marked by Brazil's structural contradictions and inequalities.
The symbolism of this graduation is even more profound in medicine, a traditionally elite profession in the country. During the graduation ceremony, the importance of the day was highlighted in a speech by student Álvaro Almeida, a member of the Quilombo Ubuntu collective, created by students as a space for welcoming, listening, debating, and resisting racism.
As a sixth-year student, he paid tribute to the pioneers who have graduated. In the words of the future doctor, the group that completed the academic journey made history in defending quotas, fighting fraud, and opening up dialogue for a more inclusive, diverse, and humane practice of medicine.
"We are here not just to celebrate an academic achievement, but to recognize a milestone of struggle and revolution. To be Black in Brazil is to face not only economic and social inequalities, but also to carry the weight of a history marked by erasure and exclusion. It's knowing that the running is doubled for us. It means turning pain into strength and silence into a voice. Graduating as a Black doctor in this country means understanding that every personal achievement is also, at the same time, an act of collective resistance."
The class experienced the medical course in this context of change and struggle. This new era demanded, and still requires, policies for permanence, the fight against racial violence, and the construction of a collective focused on diversity. The experiences recounted by those who lived this journey show that confronting racism and exclusion in the academic environment goes beyond securing university admission.
A member of the first cohort, Doctor Mirella Menaque da Paz, recalls that at the beginning of the course, she had to deal with claims that the course quality would drop with the entry of black people through quotas.
"We were forced to listen to reports that university performance would drop because poor, black, and brown people would get in. That was the biggest impact I suffered. They were demonstrations by people who didn't want us to occupy this space. As soon as we changed the profile of medicine, they accused us of occupying a space that wasn't ours."
Juliana Ferreira Rosa da Silva, a doctor who graduated from the class, explained the role of representation in her stay and during the academic period. "What made me most comfortable was seeing people in my class who were similar. When I walked in and saw that there were people who looked like me, who shared the same idea of our lives, of what we talked about and lived," she said.
According to her, her time at university brought reflections on the unequal access imposed on the black population in Brazil. "We worked in women's prisons, and most of the women were black. In contact with them and listening to their stories, I remembered similar situations of people I knew when I was younger. It could have been me if I hadn't been able to attend university."
Change, but still a struggle
The impact of quotas at UNICAMP in recent years has been considerable. Before the policy was implemented, between 2016 and 2018, the percentage of Black and Brown people entering the institution each year was 22%. In 2019, the rate rose to 35%.
This December, the University of São Paulo (USP, in Portuguese) Faculty of Medicine also celebrated the graduation of its first class with racial quota admissions in December 2024. The initiative reserves 50% of places for quotas and 36% for Black, Brown, and Indigenous students. The ceremony also had a collective and widespread presence through Núcleo Ayé, a student support movement.
However, according to Doctor Maitê Vasconcelos, who also graduated in the first class, the change still needs to be structural to include quotas. She didn't enter through the quota system, but was part of PROFIS, an inclusion program at UNICAMP aimed at students from public schools in Campinas.
Vasconcelos says she has seen some reduction in direct manifestations of racism in the academic environment over the time she has been on the course. However, she believes that the transformation is not yet profound.
"I can say with certainty that this notion has been created, but it's not because people think what they think is wrong; it's simply a notion not to be canceled. It's as if they thought: 'I'll keep quiet about this.”
The veteran's account echoes the perception of the next generations about the importance of collectivity in the process. She cites the significance of Quilombo Ubuntu: "It's a place where you know you'll find your people."
Second-year medical students Marília Isabel Araújo da Silva and Pedro Henrique Ramos da Silva are currently coordinating the collective. They spoke to Brasil de Fato about how the initiative also opens up a space for reflection on a new National Public Health System (SUS, in Portuguese), which would counter the country's racist social legacy.
According to the future doctor, this path requires changes to the curriculum, which today does not take racial issues into account and perpetuates a health system that neglects the needs of the black population. "What made me get involved was the realization that some of the things we learn in class, which will end up in the SUS, perpetuate the black genocide."
Marília Isabel questions the role of medicine's "White title" without this change. "For my population, what does it mean to graduate the way this degree wants me to? Nothing."
Following the implementation of quotas, resistance to discussing racial issues in the academic environment has emerged as one of the main obstacles to consolidating the inclusion process.
Professor Erich Vinicius de Paula, Associate Dean of UNICAMP's Faculty of Medical Sciences, recognizes the challenge. On the same day that the diplomas of the first class with quotas were handed out, the director launched the campaign "Diversity is our Strength."
According to him, the idea is to turn the presence of black people at the university into an opportunity and a strength of the institution and no longer a challenge to be overcome. At the graduation ceremony for class 57, he stressed that this task involves the entire academic community in structural changes.
"This work involves communication, learning, tolerance, humility, struggle, deconstructing some models and structures, and respecting and understanding many others. It involves rights and duties. Like the course of a river, the task will not be straight, but we have a duty to succeed," he said.
Edited by: Thalita Pires
