About half of the students who answered a Lundagård survey are highly worried about racism and xenophobia. Coincidentally, the University’s yearly work in producing a new equality plan seems to, once again, be delayed.
During this fall, crimes with a racist motive has become more common. In Trollhättan, on the 22nd of October, two individuals were killed in a hate crime motivated by racism. At the end of October, as many as 17 refugee shelters had been attacked in a case of suspected arson, and since then, new attacks have taken place.
These attacks have led to a sense of unsafety in the Swedish society – as well as in the student life. As many as 70 percent of the students at Lund University that had filled out Lundagård’s survey said that they worry about racism and xenophobia in their daily life.
Reacts to country of origin
Alexandra is one of the people who answered that they are concerned about racism and xenophobia in their daily life.
“It feels like racism and xenophobia are drawing closer and closer to your own life, which makes it hard not to think about it”, she says.
At the University, she has mostly noticed problems when people ask her where she is from and her reply is Romania. She has for example noticed problems amongst employees at the University.
“Sometimes people have seemed disappointed, and then they’ve gone quiet and looked like they didn’t know what to say. But this has only happened with some people”, she stresses.
First reaction was to compensate
This has given Alexandra a feeling that she needs to overcompensate for something. She tries to ignore this feeling, but thinks it stems from how people in general have a negative view of Romanians and that it is important to show them that they are wrong.
Therefore, Alexandra felt that her first time in Lund as an international student could have gotten a better start.
“But then your nationality stopped being the subject of discussion and your personality and knowledge became more important”, she says.
Delayed equality work
In the centre of the University’s work to prevent racism and xenophobia is an equality plan that the University has approved of.
According to Chapter 3, Section 16 in the Discrimination Act, the plan’s purpose is to make sure that all students have equal rights and opportunities to take part in student life, no matter what ethnicity you have, for example. However, Lunds Universitets Studentkårer (LUS) are not completely satisfied with how the University has handled the work on the equality plan.
“When the last equality plan was accepted, it was accepted too late. It were accepted in April, but was supposed to be valid already in January. And now we’ve noticed that we’ll soon be in the same situation again, since work on the new plan and its evaluation hasn’t even gotten underway yet”, says Cecilia Skoug, chairperson of LUS.
Has to establish one every year
According to the Discrimination Act, every educational organiser is obligated to establish an equality plan every year. The idea is that you evaluate the former plan and the work around it, at the same time as the new one is established.
When delaying the work on a new equality plan, it is possible make the decision to extend the old one, which is what the University did last time.
“But the fact that it takes so long to start working on a new plan doesn’t show signs of good and systematic work, even though it’s an important plan for the students”, says Cecilia Skoug.
A teacher’s basic values are important
She says that – among other things like preventing racism and xenophobia – it is important that the University has a living set of basic values and that they make sure teachers and other staff members are aware of it.
“It is not easy work, but it is important. One reason to why it is important is that teachers at the University actually have more influence than we think. How they act, even small things like body language and how they address the students, can affect how students think they should act in certain situations”, says Cecilia Skoug.
Speaks badly about refugees
Another student who said that she is very worried about xenophobia and racism is Rahel Weldeab. She worries both on a local and on a national level.
“Sometimes at the University I notice that subjects like colonialism are being embellished, and that race as a factor is understated by teachers and lecturers”, she says.
“Amongst students, my experiences are more about hearing people /speaking about refugees in a derogative manner and speculating about how much they will change the Swedish society.”
Feels less secure
After the attack in Trollhättan and other similar incidents, Rahel Weldeab feels less secure in her daily life and does not take safety for granted as much as she did before when she is, for example, out walking. She thinks that one thing that could make students less worried is if there were more forums where you could meet and talk about subjects such as this.
“Maybe it would lead to more solutions, unlike now, when people mostly alienate and put inaccurate labels on each other”, says Rahel Weldeab.
Worries about concrete things are easier
Per Gustafson is head of security at the University. He has not noticed any particular worries from students concerning racism and xenophobia. However, if anyone is worrying about something related to the University, he wants to know about it.
“It’s easier to help students if their worry is actually tied to something concrete. The Security Department have a hard time with experiences relating to xenophobia and racism since they are such wide concepts.”
On the question if the University has taken any specific safety measures because of recent attacks, Per Gustafson answered that it is a question for the police.
Help to take matters further
If someone instead experiences problems related to discrimination or work environment – both physical and psychosocial – they can turn to Student Representative Petra Holst.
At her office, students can get information and help regarding taking their matters further. According to Petra Holst, it is not very common that students come to her because they are worried about racism and xenophobia.
She has, however, had cases where discrimination based on ethnicity or religion has been a part of an issue, but perhaps not the main issue.
“A problem with cases like that is once you have dealt with the main issue, students are then usually reluctant to take the other parts of the issues any further. They often say that they just want to leave the whole thing behind them and move on”, says Petra Holst.
Wants to see better guidance
She thinks that the University in general should be better at knowing what services are available and be able to guide students further.
They should also get better at noticing possible problems and handle them by talking about how they work regarding these questions.
Would like to see systematic work
Cecilia Skoug thinks that the University could make more of an effort today to promote a set of living basic values.
“A quite easy way to do it would be to simply work more systematically with the equality plan and the measures that are clarified there”.
“However, it’s difficult for us to say to what level this is done today, since the idea is that the work will be evaluated, but this year it hasn’t happened yet. But we hope and believe that this work already has started now”, says Cecilia Skoug.
Lundagård has tried for six days to get in touch with several people on the University Board, but been told that none of them has time to answer any questions until a later date.
Article: Virve Ivarsson
Translation: Emily Eriksson
