Whilst educational policies in Germany have been calling for an increase in the number of teachers with a migration background for some years now, the project “Mehrsprachigkeit und Diversität in pädagogischen Berufen” (“multilingualism and diversity in educational occupations”) is the first of its kind in Austria. Our approach was guided by a critical analytical perspective on Austrian institutions of pre-service teacher education. Why do only a few students from immigrant families pass the admission procedures? Is it really a language problem – or are double standards applied in the assessment of linguistic abilities, two sets of scales for students with and without perceived migration backgrounds? We will present data from interviews with academic staff from pre-service teacher education courses. ‘They are great if their German is perfect’ – this recurring line of reasoning is characteristic of an argumentation inside monolingually shaped institutions, and it seems to be a concept versatile enough to legitimize the exclusion of students with a migration background from teacher training courses – even if the same interviewees think that linguistic deviations made by ‘native speakers’ do not matter much.