Senior academic women in Australian Universities, as elsewhere, continue to experience both direct and indirect discrimination, with the narrow white Anglo-Celtic male management profile is a factor in this discrimination. While higher education remains a hostile work environment for senior academic women their participation rates are unlikely to increase. This article explores the barriers that senior academic women experience. It then examines whether or not diversity management programmes might provide a useful management tool to increase the participation of senior women in higher education. If diversity management can impact on the management culture, more senior women may remain in universities and thereby impact on that culture.