When examining Finnish higher education, it becomes clear that universities are not isolated from the wider social structures in which they operate. The persistence of antiblack racism within academic spaces reflects both Finland’s historical relationship with colonialism and the nation’s ongoing reluctance to fully acknowledge racial inequality. What makes this problem particularly striking is the way universities—institutions meant to embody knowledge, inclusivity, and progress—can simultaneously reproduce patterns of exclusion and dehumanisation.
Several high-profile incidents over the past decade, from blackface performances at student parties to racist chants referencing Nazi ideology, expose how deeply normalized racist practices remain within student cultures. These events, far from being isolated outbursts, speak to an institutional silence that permits discriminatory behaviours to thrive. Reports of racial harassment by students and colleagues toward black faculty and staff only confirm that universities themselves are implicated in sustaining racial hierarchies.
The Denial of Racism and the Myth of National Innocence
One of the central obstacles to confronting antiblackness in Finland is the widespread belief that racism is something external, imported, or exceptional. This denial is rooted in a national narrative that portrays Finland as culturally homogenous and historically detached from colonialism. Yet such assumptions erase the realities of black students and scholars, whose experiences of exclusion are treated as surprising anomalies rather than systemic injustices.
The reactions to controversies like the use of the board game Afrikan Tähti in university contexts reveal a telling pattern: instead of sustained reflection on why such imagery persists, public debates often generate defensiveness or trivialisation. In some cases, backlash even produces commercial gains for the very symbols under scrutiny, as when sales of the game surged following criticism. This response underscores how difficult it remains for Finnish society to grapple with its own complicity in racialisation.
Higher Education and Colonial Legacies
Universities are not merely sites of learning; they are powerful cultural institutions that shape national identity and global relations. In Finland, higher education is often promoted internationally as open, inclusive, and progressive, yet the treatment of black students and faculty tells a more complex story. The denial of colonial entanglements obscures the ways Finland benefited from global systems of empire, trade, and exploitation.
By refusing to recognize this history, universities risk reproducing epistemic ignorance—a structured refusal to engage with the knowledge and experiences of racialised people. This manifests not only in curricula that omit black scholarship but also in research partnerships that sometimes replicate neocolonial dynamics, treating African partners as subjects rather than equals. If unchallenged, such practices reinforce the same hierarchies that higher education should be dismantling.
Beyond Diversity Rhetoric Toward Structural Change
A crucial insight from recent calls to action is the need to move beyond depoliticised discourses of “diversity” and “internationalisation.” While these terms suggest openness, they often mask structural inequalities. Using photographs of racialised students for promotional brochures while ignoring their lived experiences of discrimination exemplifies how universities can instrumentalise “diversity” for branding without addressing systemic harm.
Instead, what is required is an explicit commitment to antiracism and anticolonial pedagogy. This means teaching Finnish students about the country’s participation in the transatlantic slave trade, acknowledging the colonial roots of racial hierarchies, and incorporating black voices into curricula not as tokens but as central to intellectual inquiry. It also requires material investments—scholarships for black students, mentorship for black faculty, and sustainable career opportunities that do not leave racialised academics perpetually precarious.
Building Solidarity Across Struggles
It is also important to situate the struggle against antiblackness in Finland within broader movements for justice. The connections between antiblack racism, Sámi sovereignty, migrant labour exploitation, and border imperialism are not incidental but structural. Each reflects how categories of race, ethnicity, nationality, and labour are mobilised to maintain hierarchies of power.
Recognising these intersections does not dilute the specificities of antiblack racism but strengthens collective resistance. For example, drawing lessons from Canadian charters on black inclusion or from transnational solidarity movements in Palestine provides models for how Finnish universities can adopt systemic reforms rather than piecemeal adjustments. Such alliances remind us that racism is not confined by national borders, nor can its dismantling be pursued in isolation.
Toward a Transformative Future
The call to dismantle antiblackness in Finnish universities is not only about reforming policies; it is about reimagining the very purpose of higher education. If universities are to serve as spaces of knowledge production, they must reject the epistemic and structural hierarchies that devalue black life. This entails creating transparent complaint mechanisms, ensuring equitable research practices, supporting black student unions, and committing financial resources to long-term change.
The challenge is formidable: it requires Finland to confront narratives of innocence, universities to acknowledge their complicity, and academic communities to accept that neutrality in the face of racism is itself a form of violence. Yet this challenge also presents an opportunity. By embedding antiracist and anticolonial principles into the core of higher education, Finland could begin to cultivate a genuinely inclusive academic culture—one that honours diversity not as branding but as a commitment to justice.
The question that remains is whether Finnish higher education will take this call seriously. Will universities choose to remain comfortable in denial, or will they engage in the uncomfortable but necessary work of dismantling antiblackness? The answer will shape not only the future of black students and faculty but also the moral credibility of Finnish academia on the world stage.
