Deans of Federal Universities Intend to Sue Brazilian Education Minister

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The National Association of Heads of Federal Institutions of Higher Education (ANDIFES) intends to bring a legal suit against the Minister of Education, Abraham Weintraub, on allegations he has made against educational institutions. In an interview with “Jornal da Cidade”, Weintraub accuses federal universities of operating “large-scale marijuana plantations” and using laboratories to produce synthetic drugs.

“A fallacy was created that federal universities need to have autonomy. Fair enough. Autonomy for research, autonomy for teaching. But this autonomy ended up being turned into sovereignty. So, what do you have? You have marijuana plantations, but they are not just three marijuana plants. There are large-scale marijuana plantations in some universities,” says Weintraub, adding that these plantations would even be sprayed with pesticides. “Or worse. You take a chemistry lab, a chemistry college was not a teaching center, developing a synthetic drug lab, a meth lab, because the police can’t go into the campuses”.

In a note released on Friday, the ANDIFES states that if the minister is aware of crimes and has not reported them to the relevant authorities “he may be committing the crime of prevarication.” According to the association, Weintraub “is exceeding all limits of public ethics, going far beyond the limits that he no longer respected”. The body states that by attacking university autonomy, provided for in the Constitution, the minister is committing an impeachable offense.

“Thus, in the face of these disconcerting statements, ANDIFES is taking the appropriate legal measures to investigate the potential perpetration of a crime of responsibility, impropriety, slander, or prevarication,” states the note.

João Salles, president of the institution, the dean of the Federal University of Bahia (UFBA), states that the minister should provide clarification of his statements.

“If he finds out that a crime is being committed, as a government official he has an obligation to report it to the Prosecutor’s Office. He has exceeded the sheer political opinion he might have and has suggested that a crime has been committed in universities,” says Salles. “He no longer respected certain limits, but this statement is unprecedented. He clearly says that a crime is being committed and that it is not being punished because the police would not go into the campuses. So we have to take action.”

When asked if he fears reprisals from Weintraub to universities, Salles said that such a stance would be unacceptable:

“A public official may not be expected to take any retaliatory action. He had already made strange and incongruous statements about the nature of university life, prejudiced statements about the university. But now the minister has given a statement in which he is accusing someone of a crime and he talks about it extending to all universities. He speaks as if the institutions were rotten from the ground up, where criminal actions were taking place all the time.”

Globo asked the Ministry of Education (MEC) if the Minister has evidence to support these crimes at universities and if he has alerted the authorities, but has yet to receive an answer.

Source: O Globo