In New Zealand, we pride ourselves on fairness, equality, and opportunity. We are told that success comes from hard work, merit, and commitment. However, at Otago University’s medical school, one of the country’s most “prestigiously woke” institutions, that fundamental promise is being betrayed.
The recent revelations, shared by broadcaster Michael Laws on The Platform, paint a grim picture of racial discrimination being institutionalised through admission policies. According to official documents received under the OIA, students of Māori and Pacific Island descent can be admitted into the Otago medical programme with a grade average as low as 65 percent, while non-Māori students must achieve an average of around 91 percent. This is not a rumour or speculation. It is fact.
So, you’ve got two students, one Māori and one not. The Māori student gets 65 percent and walks in. The other gets 90 percent, sits psychometric tests, excels, and is still placed on a waitlist. This is academic apartheid. It's offensive. It’s patronising. And it tells Māori and Pacific people that the system doesn’t believe they’re capable of succeeding on their own merit.
It’s hard to overstate the implications of such a policy. Medical school is not just any academic programme. We are training future doctors, people who will be responsible for saving lives, making diagnoses, performing surgeries, and prescribing treatments. When entry into this critical profession is based on ethnicity over academic ability, we are putting ideology ahead of competence. In doing so, we are failing both our students and the patients they will one day serve.
The damage isn’t limited to just the students who are passed over. As Michael Laws pointed out, the very students admitted under these pathways often struggle with the academic load, drop out, and are left with debt and dashed dreams. Far from helping them, these race-based policies are setting them up to fail.
Worse still is the message it sends to talented Māori and Pacific students who could succeed on merit. It strips them of dignity and suggests their achievements are not real. It casts a shadow of doubt over every Māori doctor who did earn their place fairly. That's not uplifting or empowering. Excuse my te reo, but that’s f**king insulting.
So, you’ve got two students, one Māori and one not. The Māori student gets 65 percent and walks in. The other gets 90 percent, sits psychometric tests, excels, and is still placed on a waitlist. This is academic apartheid. It's offensive. It’s patronising. And it tells Māori and Pacific people that the system doesn’t believe they’re capable of succeeding on their own merit.
It’s hard to overstate the implications of such a policy. Medical school is not just any academic programme. We are training future doctors, people who will be responsible for saving lives, making diagnoses, performing surgeries, and prescribing treatments. When entry into this critical profession is based on ethnicity over academic ability, we are putting ideology ahead of competence. In doing so, we are failing both our students and the patients they will one day serve.
The damage isn’t limited to just the students who are passed over. As Michael Laws pointed out, the very students admitted under these pathways often struggle with the academic load, drop out, and are left with debt and dashed dreams. Far from helping them, these race-based policies are setting them up to fail.
Worse still is the message it sends to talented Māori and Pacific students who could succeed on merit. It strips them of dignity and suggests their achievements are not real. It casts a shadow of doubt over every Māori doctor who did earn their place fairly. That's not uplifting or empowering. Excuse my te reo, but that’s f**king insulting.
This isn’t about denying history or pretending that structural inequalities don’t exist. They do. But the answer to disadvantage is not reverse discrimination. The answer is fixing education earlier, providing support before university, and ensuring every Kiwi, regardless of background, has the tools they need to succeed.
Racial preference in a medical school, where lives are literally on the line, is dangerous and divisive. It is also unsustainable. We are already seeing the consequences, with some of our brightest young people looking to leave New Zealand entirely, disillusioned and demoralised by a country that values their whakapapa and tangata whenua status more than their effort.
Matua Kahurangi is just a bloke sharing thoughts on New Zealand and the world beyond. No fluff, just honest takes. He blogs on https://matuakahurangi.com/ where this article was sourced.
9 comments:
But their 65s are really 91s because of all the structural racism in Education. It is self-evident!
I don’t think Luxon and co have the nous to see they only encourage apartheid by allowing such systems. It’s disgraceful!
The University of Otago has made a big deal about being a Te Tiriti led organisation. When I looked up the implications of that term it is actually disturbing as it includes sovereignty and tikanga.
I just wonder what these structural inequalities that exist actually are? It used to be that students got into medical school or law school based on their academic achievements. Maybe part-Maori students didn't achieve the required target? Maybe we should start putting some of the blame on part-Maori leadership and part-Maori home life? This blaming of "others" is a fairly recent phenomenon. Let's face it, this group of faceless "others" are also just New Zealand families, some struggling as well, who are just trying valiantly to do the best for their own children.
This is NOT new . The dirty well known non secret is that special privelege for Maori at Otago University has been going on for decades. A part maori doctor friend has always reminded me that her Doctorate was earned, NOT given from OU.
Te Pati Maori radicals do not speak for all Maori never have , never will.
Absolute gentlemen Maori MPs like Rex Austin( Nat Southland) may not be in everyones memory but are Parliamentary history down south .
This is so racist. When I went to school we never saw race in our fellow students. We were all.individuals. We were all kiwis. At high school we were all put iinto streams for the bright kids and the average kids There were heaps of maori and pasific kids in the bright stream, by their own marks. It is so divisive and wrong to treat people differently based on race. I am disgusted by what nz is turning into.
Not only are the entry requirements lower for part Maori, so are the requirements during their courses with extra study in simplified terms.
It's nonsense to create a Maori te reo word for all the parts of the body !
Wait until we have a case of "medical misadventure " because of a misunderstanding due to a language issue.
I'm happy having a doctor from almost anywhere else from the civilized world rather than a possibly poorly trained Maori.
Let maori doctors and no one else look after maoris. That is racial integrity.
Or maybe a Medical School for only Maori doctors, who when they graduate, only look after Maori patients?
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