The takedown of Jason Arday has overjoyed the right, and must be a wake-up call for the left by Jason Okundaye: “What concerns me is how little space remains for a genuinely progressive critique of institutional diversity practices – one capable of scrutinising how for many organisations and corporations symbolic representation has been a substitute for deeper reform, leaving it vulnerable to just this kind of backlash. It has also meant that the right has enjoyed a near monopoly on criticism of DEI, leaving it to frame it entirely on its own terms…… what happens when an academic’s story is sold through him being the “youngest black ever” (sitting alongside familiar monikers such as “the first black” or “black excellence”) and asterisked by a tale of hardship? You are not encouraged or invited to engage with the substance of their scholarship; instead, you are invited to clap. Instead of his appointment conjuring the question “what new opportunities for research will this lead to?”, it was “doesn’t this make you feel good?” What this means is that Arday was treated not as a scholar but as a mascot, one who was particularly expedient for an institution that had been regularly embarrassed by its historic record on race” theguardian.com/commentisfre…