This has not been a good fortnight for the concept of diversity and inclusion. The fallout from the Jason Arday affair has been an all-out attack, by the rightwing media and political classes, on institutional efforts to reduce inequality.

Arday was the Black academic who, in a fanfare of publicity, had been appointed a professor at Cambridge University in 2023. At the time, British institutions were still struggling to address the widespread issues of systemic racism thrown up by the murder of George Floyd three years earlier.

Last month Arday faced allegations of plagiarism over his PhD thesis, and amid massive scrutiny he resigned last week. Cambridge University has now announced an independent inquiry into its appointment procedures, but many academics already believe that Arday was given the job more for his remarkable backstory than for his academic ability. Arday was, they felt, not at the level you would expect for a professorial chair at such an elite institution. But he was the man who said he couldn’t talk till he was 11, and couldn’t read till he was 18; who had run 30 marathons in 35 days, the last third of them with a leg fracture. What an amazing story. Arday gathered headlines and media appearances. He became a walking advert for how an institution with such a poor record on diversity had progressed so far. Or had it?

I’ve been promoting diversity and inclusion for more than 25 years, and one of the stock responses I often hear is: “I’d love our organisation to be more diverse, but........

© The Guardian