The controversy has attracted a range of opinions, including within the academic community.
Kathleen Stock, a philosopher and former professor at Sussex University, said Arday’s hire was motivated by universities being “desperate for good press”.
“The elite universities like Cambridge and Oxford had a particular problem because they are perceived to be quite harsh places, quite unkind places and very white places. And they wanted to change that impression,” she told the Today programme.
Stock, who resigned her post in 2021 after a row over freedom of speech and her views on gender identity, said this was a “watershed” moment.
But Kehinde Andrews, who was previously professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, said the idea that black academics had an advantage because of their racial background was not true.
He told the BBC’s Today programme: “What happens to black academics is we’re not in an area where it’s great and the left wing universities love us and they’re trying to promote us.
“What happens is you work at a place for 12 years, you’re very, very successful, and then you get made redundant. That’s the experience of black academics.”
