This thesis investigates the role of confidential advisers (CAs) in promoting diversity within academia through their work on addressing and preventing harassment at Dutch universities. Using Sara Ahmed’s (2012) diversity theory as a conceptual framework and drawing on eleven semi-structured interviews with CAs employed at Dutch universities, the study explores how CAs carry out their role within their institutions and how their practices impact organisational diversity efforts. The findings suggest that while CAs are deeply committed to supporting reporters of harassment, their ability to effect structural change within the organisation is constrained by the confidential nature of their role, their experience of institutional powerlessness and a limited understanding and awareness of diversity. This latter understanding leads CAs, in their professional practices, to overlook (minority) groups within the organisation who are particularly vulnerable to experiencing harassment and who might therefore benefit most from being actively approached by CAs. As such, this understanding emerges in the present study as a potential mechanism through which inequality is reproduced within CAs’ practices. By foregrounding the perspective of CAs, this research contributes a new dimension to the academic debate on what does and does not work in relation to diversity efforts within higher education institutions. Moreover, it highlights the need for continuous critical reflection on how diversity is implemented and the importance of structurally embedding this value within institutions. These insights are particularly relevant for the field of humanistic studies, which is concerned with questions about the development of fair and just institutions in the pursuit of a humane society.