Constitutional history of the university autonomy principle at the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court

Abstract

The object of this article is to analyze the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court’s discourses on the principle of university autonomy, enshrined in article 217 of the 1988 constitution. Through the analysis of the speeches and the silences of certain plenary decisions of the Supreme Federal Court on the subject, a jurisprudential research was developed to investigate the sense given to the university autonomy principle in its constitutional role. The study of the constitutional history of these almost thirty years of validity of the university autonomy principle made it possible to identify some ideas extracted from the speeches of the Supreme Federal Court. By the statements and references of the decisions, the use of the concept of sovereignty to avoid the deepening in the discussions on the university autonomy was verified. It was also noted that the Supreme Court denies the challenges posed to the constitutional community, by negating the binding force of that principle and hence its own constitutional nature.