SVT Sápmi has previously told that Umeå University will start a new summer course with the course name “Sami as ‘tribe’ and ‘race’ and indigenous people in science and politics”.
But the course has received a lot of criticism and led to internal disputes at Umeå University. Both researchers who were in favor of the course, and those who were against it, believe that they have been exposed to personal attacks and even threats.
Professor Jonny Hjelm designed the course and would also have taught.
– They have called me a Sami hater and I was equated with a holocaust denier, they discussed whether I was racist – that it was an expression of the ultra-right. When researchers and other intellectuals can whip up moods like this, what happens to those who might be mentally ill and pick up on this, he says.
The title evokes emotions
The criticism has been about several things, but it is the title of the course that has stirred the most emotions. One who questioned it is Jon Petter Stoor, who himself works at the university.
– There are no courses in Sweden called things like this, with the specifically vulnerable minorities in focus: Sami as a race, Jews as a race, Roma as a race, he says.
Jonny Hjelm, however, thinks it is pretentious.
– As if this course was about showing that the Sami are a race – which is completely preposterous.
The course is cancelled
Last week, therefore, Jonas Nilsson, head of department at the department of idea and social studies, decided to cancel the course.
– The reason is out of concern for the working environment, so I decided to cancel.
He says that they still have confidence in Jonny Hjelm.
– But it would have been good if we had had a different name for the course that hadn’t been misunderstood in the way that has happened now, that hadn’t caused concern among people.