Properly Implemented Diversity and Inclusion Raises Standards, So the Arday Scandal Shouldn't End D&I Efforts
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/profile/josephharker. "The Jason Arday affair must not spell the end for diversity. Here’s how – and why – we should defend it | Joseph Harker | The Guardian." August 13, 2026. www.theguardian.com
The Gist
The author argues that even though the Jason Arday plagiarism scandal has fueled attacks on diversity policies, this shouldn't lead institutions to abandon diversity and inclusion efforts. He claims the real problem was that Cambridge took a shortcut—hiring someone for a good story rather than fixing deeper issues in how it recruits and promotes minority academics—and that when done properly, diversity actually improves organizations rather than lowering their standards.
Conclusion
Institutions should defend and continue properly implemented diversity and inclusion policies rather than abandoning them in response to the Jason Arday scandal, because genuine D&I raises organizational standards rather than lowering them.
Premises
- The Jason Arday case was not a genuine D&I failure but a case of an institution seeking a superficial PR win rather than pursuing real inclusion, since it prioritized a compelling backstory over rigorous evaluation of qualifications.
- True D&I involves bringing in people with diverse life experiences and perspectives, valuing their input, which leads to more informed decisions and better organizational performance.
- Opening hiring to more diverse candidate pools increases competition, which raises rather than lowers standards.
- There is an important distinction between positive action (leveling the playing field through training/opportunities before competitive application) and positive discrimination/quotas (which excludes people and lowers standards); only the latter is problematic and it is already illegal in the UK.
- The Arday backlash unfairly casts doubt on the legitimacy of other Black academics' positions, suggesting institutions should instead fix underlying recruitment, retention, and promotion processes rather than seeking superficial symbolic hires.
- There is ample evidence that diverse organizations perform better.
- When institutions cave to political pressure (e.g., post-Trump backlash) and abandon D&I policies, this reflects a failure to understand what D&I actually is and does, rather than a legitimate critique of D&I itself.
Assumptions
- Cambridge's appointment of Arday was primarily motivated by PR/symbolic considerations rather than genuine merit-based evaluation, though this is contested by the university's own inquiry which is still pending.
- Diversity of background reliably correlates with diversity of useful perspective and improved decision-making in all organizational contexts.
- The distinction between positive action and positive discrimination is always clear and uncontroversial in practice.
- Institutions that pursue diversity 'properly' can be readily identified and distinguished from those that pursue it poorly, and critics conflate the two.
- The 'ample evidence' that diverse organizations perform better is robust, causal, and generalizable across contexts.
- Public backlash against a poorly-handled diversity case does not constitute legitimate evidence against diversity policies generally.