A professor in Sweden rejected a Turkish student’s application for an internship. He claimed that Turkey was preventing Sweden from joining NATO. Reaching the e-mail sent by the Swedish professor, TRT World revealed the discrimination against the Turkish student.
Professor Per Carlbring, who works at Stockholm University, responded to the internship application of psychology student Fatma Zehra S., saying, “Dear Fatma, I would love to host you. However, since Turkey does not allow Sweden to join NATO, I have to decline. Sorry!”
Fatma, a 3rd year Psychology undergraduate student at Ibni Haldun University, Istanbul, was awarded an internship at a school of her choice by the European Union grant program Erasmus+ for the summer of 2023.
“I was shocked when I got the answer”
One of the schools Fatma applied to was Stockholm University in Sweden. On November 23, 2022, the student sent an email asking to take part in a research project led by academic Carlbring.
A few hours later, Carlbring replied, “Dear Fatma, I would love to host you, but since Turkey is blocking Sweden from joining NATO, I have to reject your application. Sorry.”
“I was shocked after receiving this answer. It took me a long time to digest it,” Fatma told TRT World.
Professor did not respond to TRT World’s questions
Fredrik Jonsson, Head of the Psychology Department at Stockholm University, told TRT World: “We receive many applications from students who want to work with us as research interns. We cannot accept all of these applications, but we hope that any request will be answered in a professional manner. In this case, we acted as soon as we learned about this issue and handled it according to our procedures.”
Professor Carlbring did not respond to TRT World’s questions.
“The tip of the iceberg”
Fatma thought that her experience might be “the tip of the iceberg” and filed a formal complaint. “If he did this to me, he might have done it to other students of different races applying to the university,” she added.
Fatma filed a discrimination complaint with the university on December 5, 2022. The report stated that the professor’s response was “based on political considerations” and “demonstrated a discriminatory attitude, even outright racist”.
“This behavior is racist and inappropriate”
On December 6, 2022, Fatma received a letter of apology from Grandson Lindholm Ojmyr, Vice Chair of the Department of Psychology, regarding the incident. Ojmyr claimed that Professor Carlbring’s behavior was inappropriate and wrong and that “several active measures are planned in the department going forward”, including “education on equal terms and the Swedish Discrimination Act”.
However, Fatma believes that these measures are not enough. Moreover, she has not received a formal apology from the professor. “At this point, I was hoping he would send me an apology, but he didn’t, and I’m disappointed about that,” she said.
“I think this behavior is childish, racist and really inappropriate,” she added.
Fatma says that despite her negative experience, her application was accepted by a different professor in the psychology department at the same university and she plans to continue her internship this summer.
