This article proposes that progressive frameworks underpinned by diversity are contradictory to the inclusion of the "other" in Australian higher education. I integrate the critical race theory constructs of disregard and convergence with white privilege and indigenous lacking to claim that objective processes underpinned by merit embed the marginalising of the "other". I draw on storytelling to enunciate my subjective experience of disregard as a Maori woman scholar to shed light on institutional culture in the maintaining of insider privilege. (Contains 4 notes.)