Universities, like many major public institutions, have embraced the notion of "diversity" virtually uncritically--it is seen as a moral good in itself. But what happens to those who come to represent "diversity"--the black and minority ethnic groups targeted to increase the institutions' thirst for global markets and aversion to accusations of institutional racism? Drawing on existing literature which analyses the process of marginalisation in higher education, this article explores the individual costs to black and female academic staff regardless of the discourse on diversity. However, despite the exclusion of staff, black and minority ethnic women are also entering higher education in relatively large numbers as students. Such grass-roots educational urgency transcends the dominant discourse on diversity and challenges presumptions inherent in top-down initiatives such as widening participation. Such a collective movement from the bottom up shows the importance of understanding black female agency when unpacking the complex dynamics of gendered and racialised exclusion. Black women's desire for education and learning makes possible a reclaiming of higher education from creeping instrumentalism and reinstates it as a radical site of resistance and refutation. (Contains 5 notes.)