Lundsberg boarding school submits response to discrimination watchdog hours before deadline

The elite Swedish boarding school Lundsberg submitted its final response to the Discrimination Ombudsman (DO) late on Tuesday, just hours before the agency’s June 2 deadline, acknowledging that unsupervised environments enabled older students to exert informal power over younger ones, according to a report by public broadcaster SVT.

In its submission, the school outlined identified risks of discrimination and detailed measures taken to address them. “The absence of adults increased the risk that older students could exercise informal power over younger students, creating a risk of disadvantage linked to age discrimination,” the school’s leadership wrote.

Karin Henriksson, head of DO’s legal unit, confirmed receipt of the response and described it as more detailed than previous submissions. “They have highlighted the risk of age-related harassment through informal hierarchies where older students have influenced younger ones,” she said, adding that the agency would now analyze the material thoroughly.

The DO launched its investigation following a December 2025 court ruling that convicted four Lundsberg students of assault and violation of domestic peace after incidents in January 2025, later exposed in SVT’s documentary The Heirs. The watchdog’s review focuses on the school’s efforts to prevent discrimination, harassment, and sexual harassment among students.

Lundsberg also provided DO with results from a 2025 student survey on language use, revealing that 36 percent of respondents had witnessed racist language and 40 percent had observed sexist language. Despite this, 87 percent reported feeling “very good” or “fairly good” at the school.

Henriksson emphasized the severity of the findings. “While derogatory language can occur in any school, we take these reports—and what emerged in the documentary—very seriously.”

The DO will now determine whether further information is required before assessing whether Lundsberg complies with legal standards. The school had previously requested two extensions to the response deadline, with the agency setting June 2 as final.