Abstract
‘You Maaris get everything’, ‘it is easy for you to get a scholarship because you are Māori’, ‘you will get into Medicine easier because you are Māori’ and ‘Māori get special treatment’ are all phrases that are commonly heard within a competitive university environment such as the University of Otago. These phrases are associated with Māori-targeted support services, Māori-targeted scholarships and Māori-targeted admission schemes. The New Zealand media also promotes terminology such as preferential entry and special measures that perpetuate the negative stigma surrounding privilege. This thesis was undertaken to find out what can be done, at the University in particular, to eliminate this negative stigma. I used a whakapapa (genealogy, history) methodology to explain the purpose of Trequity Measures – the term I have developed – in relation to the importance the Treaty of Waitangi and highlighting educational inequities for Māori. Staff and students that were involved with, and recipients of Trequity Measures, were interviewed enabling them to share an important voice that had been hidden within the literature. Their experiences are the key to eliminating the negative stigma attached to Trequity Measures of the University.