Chris Smith, chancellor of the University of Cambridge, on Feb. 24, 2026, in Cambridge, England. (Nordin Catic/Getty Images for The Cambridge Union)If The Onion or The Babylon Bee or another satirical publication wanted to spoof the absurdity of DEI—the ideology of “diversity, equity, and inclusion”—they couldn’t have invented a character as unbelievable as Jason Arday. But Arday is very real: Born in 1985, in 2023 he became at 37 the youngest black man ever to hold a professorship at Cambridge University. He’s a poster child for the suspension of common-sense DEI demands of its believers on both sides of the Atlantic. When he’s just a professor of the sociology of education, even at a university as prestigious as Cambridge, an Arday is comical.