Response to interpellation 2024/25:356 on DEI initiatives within the education system
Translated from Swedish by AI; the translation may contain errors. The Swedish text is the original.
Summary AI, written in advance
The debate concerned DEI initiatives within the education system. L argues that universities should maintain high quality by safeguarding self-determination and academic freedom 1. L emphasizes that meritocracy and equal conditions for women and men are necessary to attract researchers 1, and that work to ensure everyone feels welcome is reasonable 2. L wants the smartest to reach higher education and that student financing provides everyone with opportunities 3. SD argues that the DEI concept is based on discrimination and that woke ideology should be purged. SD wants to defend meritocratic principles and considers concepts such as gender and intersectional analysis to be left-wing ideology.
Written by AI in advance and may contain errors. The numbers lead to the speech a statement builds on; check against the text below.
Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! Tobias Andersson has asked me if I intend to take any measures against the woke ideology within the Swedish education system.
The government's goal is that education and research at universities and colleges shall maintain high quality internationally and be conducted efficiently. Universities and colleges have a great responsibility to organize their activities so that this goal can be achieved.
The overall requirements for higher education are found in law and regulation. The autonomy of higher education institutions regarding how the activities are to be organized and how the resources are to be used is an important principle issue. Just like academic freedom, it is a prerequisite for high quality in education and research.
When it comes to recruitment of personnel, merit and skill are the starting point for all employments within public activities in Sweden. From the Higher Education Act (1992:1434) and the Higher Education Ordinance (1993:100), which regulate the activities at state universities and colleges, requirements for eligibility and assessment grounds for various employments within higher education are specified. These also specify requirements for the employment procedure, for example in question of when an expert assessment shall be made. Based on the national regulation, universities and colleges are responsible for organizing their local merit systems.
Higher education institutions have the employer responsibility and thus the responsibility for, among other things, recruitment and career paths. In the bill Research and innovation for the future, curiosity and utility (prop. 2024/25:60), the government emphasizes that the right competence in higher education is the key to achieving excellent research and other long-term conditions for the institutions' activities. The institutions' work with recruitment and career paths is therefore of great strategic importance.
The Government also emphasizes that, in order for Swedish educational institutions to attract the best researchers, recruitment must take place in open competition based on merits and with transparency. There must be clear career paths that reward excellence at every step. Furthermore, for Sweden to continue to be a leading knowledge and research nation, equal conditions for similar work and merits must apply to women and men. If the academic career paths do not rest on meritocratic grounds, doctoral and research positions become less attractive. Those with the best merits risk not applying for positions, and in the long run, the recruitment base is then reduced.
Education in higher education contributes to cultivation and to individual development, social engagement and critical thinking. Universities and colleges have an important responsibility to organize and develop their activities to achieve high quality in education, strengthen the supply of skills for the labor market's needs and ensure that resources are utilized effectively. The institutions' autonomy and academic freedom are prerequisites for high quality in education and research, and these principles shall be protected.
Tobias Andersson (SD)
Madam Speaker! I thank the Minister for Education very much for the answer.
On Wednesday, January 22, the educational institution Chalmers inaugurated its so-called DEI office. The inauguration coincided almost to the hour with the USA's decommissioning of all equivalents within the American civil service. When the world's largest democracy settles accounts with the woke ideology and clears it out from the state apparatus, a responsible minister in Sweden chooses to embrace the same destructive and divisive ideology, as I said in the debate with the Minister for Equality last week.
Without background and understanding, the concept of DEI – diversity, equity and inclusion – can of course sound laudable. It is possible that some of those who advocate for it in Sweden do not know better.
I have also noted that in Sweden there is an attempt to let the acronym have its own meaning, as both from Chalmers and from the Minister for Equality's side, it has been stated that the letter E in this context should mean equality instead of equity. In that case, in my opinion, one should use other terms and not borrow a term from English, which has a fixed meaning in its context, only to then change the meaning of a letter in this acronym. It seems somewhat strange, Madam Speaker. It is perhaps better that one speaks entirely in other terms or uses Swedish terms instead to avoid misunderstandings of that kind.
As a government, one must be careful about which concepts and movements and what ideologies one associates oneself with. The basic principle for the actual concept of DEI is, in fact, based on discrimination. When certain individuals are quoted in based on factors such as gender and ethnic background, other, more qualified individuals are disadvantaged and discriminated against.
In his response, the Minister for Education defends meritocracy, which I welcome. The starting point is therefore that everyone should receive equal opportunities, but that recruitment etc. shall be based on skills, achievements, and so on. This differs from DEI's view on equity, which means that equal outcomes should be guaranteed regardless of the individual's ability and performance.
Against this background, I believe the Minister for Education and I agree on the need to have a meritocratic basis within the Swedish education system. Knowledge should be central, while political values and fluff may constitute leisure interests if one promptly needs to engage in them. To ensure this, in my opinion, we need to purge the woke ideology that defiles parts of the Swedish education system.
I asked the minister if he intends to take any measures against the woke ideology within the Swedish education system. The minister mentioned, as stated, meritocracy and many reasonable, fundamental principles, but the minister is welcome to elaborate on his answer regarding the specific question.
Madam Speaker! If I am to simplify anything, I want to ask if the Minister agrees with my description that there is left-wing fluff similar to woke ideology within the Swedish education system. If the Minister agrees with this, shall we act against it – and if so, how – or shall we let it remain as it is? If the Minister does not share my view on how the woke ideology has infiltrated the Swedish education system, I can only state that it is unfortunate that he has not yet reached that realization.
Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! We can observe that vast amounts of research are being conducted at our universities and at a number of colleges. Vast amounts of things are being written, for example, theses and research papers. I find it very difficult to review all of this. Furthermore, there are several people in here who would think it would be very fun if I started doing so, because we have academic freedom. It is an order that, not least I as a Liberal, consider very important.
Furthermore, universities, colleges, and private institutions have a mission to recruit individuals to their educational institutions in various ways. When they do this, they work strategically. They want to get the smartest people there. I do not want to claim that there is a reason why Tobias Andersson and I are standing here instead of being at a university or a college, but they are indeed working to find the absolute best. And the best can be people of different genders and with different backgrounds and different life stories, but they are the sharpest in their respective fields.
I also, of course, think many things, but I find it difficult to delve into and review how one recruits and how one works with, for example, the equality work. But it is central and important for us to have an equal education and for everyone to have the same chance. I can state that the pro-rector responsible for leadership and equality at Chalmers, which is now being debated, has been clear that they speak about diversity, equality, and inclusion in a Swedish perspective. The question of whether it is appropriate to use an American abbreviation or not must be posed to Chalmers. I do not intend to review that.
But we know that in the education programs conducted by Chalmers, work is done to follow both the steering documents that the Riksdag has established, and those that we in the government present, ensuring that they move towards excellence and quality. I think that is good.
As I usually say, it doesn't matter if they are old or new universities or if they are large or small. It doesn't matter what gender or background people have. It is completely uninteresting to me. But we shall have the best, because it is important for Sweden. That is how we create prosperity and the future, and that is how we in Sweden can continue to make technical breakthroughs for humanity. That is why we are engaged in the core activities and not just with a good basic education.
The work that Chalmers carries out so that everyone can feel welcome and so that people's success at the institution is not determined by their background, I think is a perfectly reasonable approach. It has nothing to do with the American context. There are many who want to import American politics and Elon Musk's rhetoric to Sweden, and I think one should be cautious about that. We know what is stated in the Swedish legislation and the Swedish constitution regarding Sweden's universities, colleges, and other educational institutions. We shall continue to safeguard that – equal opportunities and equal obligations.
Tobias Andersson (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you for the answer, Minister for Education! I can agree with much of what is being said. It is clear that it is reasonable that we should all have the same conditions and be given the same opportunities regardless of what ethnic background, gender or anything else we have.
The Minister emphasizes that within higher education, the focus should be on excellence. As the Minister said, it should be the sharpest and best who should be entitled to hold the leading positions to ensure Sweden's position as a research power, or whatever it may be in the case at hand.
I can state that then, at least in my head, a logical problem arises. If that is the case, then gender equality integration, gender- and institution-specific percentage targets for recruitment and so on, are not needed. They are not needed if everything is just based on the fact that the absolute best should get the most central roles, regardless of whether we are talking about the public sector, academia, private business, the Riksdag, or anything else. If the basic premise is that the best people should receive these positions – and now we are talking specifically about higher academia – an institution should not need to have specific targets for the recruitment of professors based on gender.
Then Chalmers, which is the subject of this debate, should not have needed to spend 300 million kronor on its project Genie. The project is intended to highlight so-called bias, i.e., attempt to draw attention to discrimination or oppression and attempt to categorize students, professors, and others into the type of power structures that have been imported from the woke ideology in the USA. If one had simply recruited the best, one would not have needed to spend a single krona on anything other than finding out who is the best.
It is when one departs from the meritocratic principle and the principle that the person best suited should receive the position they deserve that one needs to waste money on finding power cultures, victim roles, and so on. That is what I oppose. I also think it stands in direct contradiction to the wise words that the Minister for Education utters here today.
I can exemplify this with what the person in question, who became the head of the so-called DEI office at Chalmers, writes on LinkedIn. Namely, that she looks forward to working with norm-critical design, gender and technology research, and intersectional analysis. The latter is something she hopes all future engineering students will take with them into their working lives.
What is intersectional analysis then? It is part of the leftist fluff that constitutes woke, and it means that as an engineering student, one should learn to group individuals based on different types of victim roles. Are you black, are you white, are you a man, are you a woman, are you gay, are you straight, are you disabled, are you not disabled, and so on?
When one has divided all people into these different categories, one should then, based on some political dogmas, begin to prioritize and investigate who it is most pitiful for. That is the basic idea. First, we shall break apart and divide the entire population, and then we shall categorize them based on this. Thereafter, if this is utilized as it is done in the USA, one will be quoted into based on what role one has, how much of a victim one is, and where in the power pyramid one stands.
This is a line of thinking that I do not believe does the Swedish university world any good. I would like to hear how the Minister defends this and how it aligns with the meritocratic principles he has advocated.
Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! There is so much material for thought, not least in this chamber, which sparks an interesting debate. What is it that has caused this material for thought to come to Sweden, how has it grown, and from where does it get its nourishment?
I agree with a lot of the criticism that Tobias Andersson raises. It is fully relevant. This is an activity that one can truly have opinions on, just like other ideological currents that are extremely strange. I defend the liberal: openness, clarity, legality, and meritocracy.
When one says "best suited" within higher education, one must first acknowledge that it is also an important workplace. It is a place where the employer, the university, the educational institution or the college – Chalmers in this case – must work to counter discrimination, both formal and informal, to create an environment where people with different backgrounds can feel at home. It is reasonable and decent.
But when it comes to the recruitment itself, it primarily, and largely exclusively, concerns the best suited. There is a certain possibility of positive discrimination in Sweden if all else is equal. Then one can weigh in things such as it being good to have mixed workplaces so that it otherwise can become stereotypical. I do not know how it sounds with Tobias Andersson and some other male comrades; perhaps it could be freshened up a bit sometimes with other political approaches or with women – I do not know. I think it is fun when it is mixed, and there is often better dynamics. But the positive discrimination in Sweden is very strict when it comes to the way it can be applied. Therefore, all recruitment shall be based on meritocracy; it is as clear as it can be.
With that said, Madam Speaker, it is difficult to be against taking the one who is best suited. But if one digs a little into this and looks at what it is, one sees, for example, that there is a difference between men and women. It looks different. And again: This work is carried out because one does not want to miss a sharp brain. A person's gender must in no way be decisive for a recruitment.
Then I think it is reasonable that several educational institutions look at how international mobility is analyzed. It is connected to what age one is. One might have had children early in their research career and contributes to the preservation of society in that way as well. It is about how research networks and leadership roles are analyzed or how publications and citations are valued, for example, co-publications. Research grants and funding can look different depending on the field. When it comes to excellence, it is about the excellence itself from the government's side; since research is free, we do not interfere with exactly what it concerns, unless it involves targeted funds that we have allocated in the research proposition.
One must look at what is meant by leadership and academic demeanor and what it looks like. There are still insecure men who believe that if they talk a lot, it means more, so to speak. One looks at prizes and awards. All of this, I think, one needs to look at in order to be able to make an analysis that means one does not overlook, for example, women in academia.
In the long run, Madam Speaker, I believe we will have to return. In 10 or 20 years, perhaps I and Tobias Andersson, if we are still here in this chamber, will discuss equality in education from a completely different perspective: why boys perform so poorly.
Tobias Andersson (SD)
Madam Speaker! Thank you again for the answer, Minister for Education! I just want to have it recorded in the minutes that we both agree that it is absolutely fun when it is mixed with women, so that there are no misunderstandings regarding where I stand when it comes to that type of socializing.
With this said, I think it is worth pointing out where the underlying reasoning comes from. I hear what the Minister for Education says, and I believe that we and our parties can jointly do a lot to strengthen the focus on knowledge in schools, from an early age all the way up to advanced research. I believe we can try to consolidate and defend meritocratic principles in appointments and other matters. I think it is positive, and I look forward to working on this jointly.
With this said, I think it is unfortunate that within academia, under some form of protection with reference to academic freedom, one chooses to continue to engage in, or at least be inspired by, what constitutes pure left-wing ideology. This concerns, among other things, as I have pointed out earlier, terms that are connected with gender, intersectional analysis, norm-critical design, and all such things. It does not matter what we stand and say here, because when those who carry out the activities at the educational institutions, from preschool all the way up to the universities, choose to utilize those types of concepts and live in an ideological framework that is left-wing, it limits our possibilities of gaining approval for what the voters have given us a mandate to achieve: a knowledge-oriented school.
This means in practice, based on their ideology, that if there had been two Johan Pehrsons, one of whom is short, black, gay and disabled, he would have gotten the job instead of the Johan Pehrson I am debating with here today. I think that would have been wrong.
Utbildningsministern Johan Pehrson (L)
Madam Speaker! To conclude this interpellation debate, I just want to point out that the liberal values of equality and non-discrimination are of no concern to the Left. On the other hand, there are leftist elements in politics that concern the idea that everything should be compensated for and that people do not have a great personal responsibility. But to create equal opportunities, we cannot just talk about how to organize this at a single university, which I would preferably not do for the reasons I stated initially.
It starts early. It starts with all children in Sweden getting the chance to learn the Swedish language and that students get the opportunity to attend a school that goes back to the basics – reading, writing, and arithmetic – and which takes everyone through primary school and then upper secondary school so that they have good chances to realize their dreams.
Many people participate in higher education and study at colleges and universities, but not everyone does. We want the smartest to get there. That is why we have student financing and CSN, which we are going to talk about here in the chamber in a moment. All of this is intended to give everyone who wants to and has the opportunity the chance. Then it is perhaps more about a socioeconomic perspective – one should be able to study even if one comes from a less affluent background.
We stand by the fact that meritocracy applies. But in order not to miss the smartest in the excellence competition that is ongoing in the world, Sweden must also ensure that no one is discriminated against because of their background.
Source: The Swedish Parliament. The speeches come from the open data of the Riksdag, translated into English by AI, which may contain errors.