Sonia Guajajara: First indigenous honorary doctorate from Uerj

“Record number 155. On the 28th day of May in the year 2025, in a solemn ceremony held at the Odylo Costa Theater, part of the State University of Rio de Janeiro, the Superior Councils conferred the title of Honorary Doctorate upon Sonia Guajajara, in recognition of her distinguished contributions to our society.”

With these words, the title was conferred upon the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara, and recorded in the Book of Historical Occurrences of the State University of Rio de Janeiro (Uerj).

The handwritten book, which documents acts and events of significant historical relevance in the university’s history, now bears the name of the first indigenous person to receive its highest honor.

Sonia Guajajara’s name appears just a few pages from those of other recipients of the same title, including composer Antônio Carlos Jobim, former South African president Nelson Mandela, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, and musician Gilberto Gil.

The minister received the tribute with emotion: “I don’t know whether to cry, smile, feel, or freeze.”

According to Guajajara, receiving the title of Doctor Honoris Causa is, “above all, a recognition of the collective history of indigenous peoples in Brazil and around the world.”

The minister also highlighted the importance of Uerj, the first public university to establish a quota system—a policy that would later become national law for all federal universities. “Uerj understood this long before many other institutions, when, more than two decades ago, it pioneered the implementation of racial and social quotas in Brazil,” the minister said.

“[Uerj] formally recognized that academic merit cannot be separated from the structural inequalities that shape our society. In doing so, it enabled thousands of young people—black, indigenous, and from the urban outskirts—to occupy spaces of knowledge production and social transformation,” she said.

Before an audience of students, lawmakers, social movement representatives, and teachers, Guajajara emphasized the importance of indigenous presence across Brazil’s institutions.

“I hope to pave the way for indigenous children and for a new generation that is increasingly claiming space in our society. I feel profound joy seeing our people now present in classrooms, the media, the arts, parliaments, the judiciary, and also in executive roles at the municipal, state, and federal levels, including within the ministries of the Brazilian government,” she added.

The minister also advocated for land demarcation and expressed solidarity with Environment and Climate Change Minister Marina Silva, who had been attacked the previous day during a hearing in the Federal Senate.

“I would like to invite everyone to embrace the cause of indigenous peoples in the fight for the recognition and demarcation of our territories. Brazil will never be without us again,” she concluded.

Gulnar Azevedo e Silva, Rector of UERJ, speaks during the award ceremony honoring the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara. — Photo: Tânia Rêgo/Agência Brasil

Gulnar Azevedo e Silva, Uerj’s rector, emphasized in her speech the significance of the title.

“Today, we pay a profound tribute to the Minister of Indigenous Peoples, Sonia Guajajara. It is a great pleasure and honor for us to grant her the title of Doctor Honoris Causa. For the first time, UERJ is awarding its highest honor to an Indigenous personality, in recognition of her contributions to society, culture, and science,” said Silva.

According to the rector, the university currently has 38 indigenous students itted through socio-racial quotas, enrolled across 24 different programs.

History student Tangwa Puri and pedagogy student Thaís Guajajara, who attended the ceremony, are two of them.

“When one of our own receives this recognition—symbolic, but also very real—it shows that we are not here just to resist. It shows that we exist in Brazil and are being honored and recognized for our knowledge,” said Puri.

Thaís Guajajara added, “We have someone who represents us and proves that we can be there one day. That’s very important.”