This paper examines the ethnicity of academic scholars employed by New Zealand’s eight universities, with a particular focus on Pasifika academics. The paper discusses how, despite national and university policies to see education serve Pasifika peoples better, there has been no change in the numbers of Pasifika academics employed by the universities between 2012 and 2017, and notes that Pasifika who are in the academy are continually employed in the lower, less secure levels of the academy. Examining international discourses of exclusion from universities, this paper builds on current Pasifika understandings and experiences of universities and highlights the urgent need for universities to reconsider their current recruitment, retention and promotion practices, and overarching structures and habits that operate to exclude Pasifika peoples.