Honouring Te Tiriti o Waitangi through addressing racism in universities

Abstract

Executive summary The WERO team conducted two studies on university documents to identify how universities articulate their commitments to Te Tiriti o Waitangi and address inequities for Māori within tertiary education. The first study, which is a case study of a university’s Treaty Statement, highlighted the university’s limitations in empowering Māori to exercise tino rangatiratanga within various decision-making structures. The second study, which scrutinises Māori representation across strategic documents of all universities, revealed that universities reify whiteness by selectively interpreting Te Tiriti articles, pursuing targeted Māori recruitment, portraying Māori as reliant on the Crown for success, commodifying mātauranga Māori, and evading discussions about settler colonialism and racial equity. Drawing from our findings and constitutional transformation documents such as Matike Mai (2016), we proffer three recommendations to enable universities to more effectively uphold Te Tiriti o Waitangi: 1. Universities must clearly define the operation of settler colonialism and racism in each institution so that sustainable anti-racist initiatives can be identified. 2. Each university must grow relational spheres where Māori are empowered to make collective decisions with the Crown representatives in the university. 3. Universities must invest in a Māori-led independent body to develop and deliver a Te Tiriti-centric programme that decolonises university processes