Combatting ethnoracial discrimination at universities in France and Quebec: a critical examination of institutional failures

Universities in France and Quebec are developing policies to combat discrimination and promote equality among their student bodies. However, despite these initiatives, inequalities in how people are treated based on their ethnoracial origin persist in higher education, highlighting contradictions in the actions taken by these institutions.To analyse experiences of discrimination and the limitations of university policies, this article is based on two qualitative surveys conducted at the University of Bordeaux (France) and Laval University (Quebec), comprising a corpus of 78 interviews with students from minority groups and university staff members involved in implementing diversity management policies.Discrimination emerges as a long, cumulative process affecting people’s trajectories across a range of academic and non-academic spaces. The University of Bordeaux struggles to recognise ethnoracial inequalities, given a national context that renders them less visible, developing selective policies focused solely on sex and gender. Laval University falls under the national EDI framework but struggles to integrate these measures into its management routines, limiting policy effectiveness.The comparative analysis thus highlights the differences that exist between discourse and practice, questioning universities’ ability to eliminate the unequal social relationships encountered throughout the academic world against the backdrop of a changing national context.