The Jason Arday scandal

The brother was chat’in. 😂

Acc to Julie Bindel, two female academics from disadvantaged backgrounds were overlooked for this appointment. Seems there is a hierarchy of deserving within DEI philosophy that places women at the bottom and suggests that a disadvantaged background was not the driver for JA’s appointment.

Can’t possibly imagine what attribute he has has that elevated his application above the others 🤔

You’d think. This is on Cambridge as much as the individual himself.

That certainly can't be trusted. It's been stealth edited several times and prominent names have removed themselves from it.

<a class="break-all" href="https://web.archive.org/web/20260728174237/goodlawproject.org/petition/stand-in-solidarity-with-jason-arday/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://web.archive.org/web/20260728174237/goodlawproject.org/petition/stand-in-solidarity-with-jason-arday/ (an early capture)

[Sorry for the breaks but you can easily find it on the web archive]

Just use nitter instead.

https://nitter.net/GrumpyOW/status/2085743542291296679

I would like to bet there were other far better qualified applicants for the post - more publications and an impressive academic reputation. However the uni seized the opportunity to tick the old diversity box.

I’d argue that racism is also at play when your expectations of black scholars is so low that you allow under-qualified and inexperienced individuals, with a small pedigree of published works, to be promoted into high level jobs. I’ve seen interviews with high ranking black professionals who demand that DEI measures in the UK/US be removed because the perception of black candidates and graduates in academia and other professions is completely undermined. Because it erodes any respect they can hope to get for their very considerable experience.

I have no issue with contextual grade reduction - on paper this really is just 1-2 grades so AAA gets reduced to AAB/ABB. for candidates who do not meet the on paper criteria for a contextual offer, universities (eg Southampton) offer interviews (my DS was invited to one, I assume because of his autism declaration in is statement) and he also received a grade reduction in his offer as a result of impressing them. I think if it were more than a few grades I’d have an issue, but contextual reductions for are less about candidate ability and more about recognising that if you come from a school with poor Ofsted rankings or a special measures history, and it is in a deprived area, that candidates there are institutionally and systemically disadvantaged.

That the current A Level system does not prepare children for university in and of itself - that private school pupils have an advantage because they are taught the requisite skills along side A level teaching - is criminal. It’s something that the government, exam boards and universities need to bash out in a room somewhere and change. A student who has got ABB rather than AAA, should still be readily able to adapt to university standards quickly if the teaching and syllabus at university facilitates it - unis should be where those skills are taught, honed and extended, not a place where they rely on students arriving as fully formed academics. In fact, that a student who has achieved an ABB in an underperforming school really should be the indicator of significant intellectual potential and academic resilience that it is. The teaching to exams effectively disadvantages any child in state school - not just the ones from disadvantaged backgrounds and minority demographics. And the reluctance of unis to build in compulsory prep courses for all students that covers academic skills - research writing, referencing systems, the way to structure essays/research reports in their specific disciple - is lazy and inadequate.

It’s the whole life story that I find incredible @Aluna Surely that should have rung massive alarm bells? Many of the things claimed were easily verifiable and would have been shown to be untrue. More than that, some of the lies didn’t even need outside checking, as Arday’s own story contradicted them.

This has the ring of total authenticity for me at least and makes a great point about who the fallout will affect most.

The Good Law Project? 🤣 They make a career out of losing cases. They’ve also represented their losses as wins. Their support does Arday no favours at all.

Do we need Sociology/Educational Theory research at all?
Surely there is enough knowledge already out there. Ready to use. Instead of writing more FFS read and apply the stuff that is on shelves and gathering dust.
People have not changed over the last 150 years and non scientific bullshit like that will not change the future generations.
Close the Departments such as Media Studies and Sociology that encourage this superficial nonsense.
Other humanities subjects such as history and geography are necessary as we are finding new information. Historians are find letters in libraries in other countries that add to our knowledge of what happened here.

But are the outlandish claims true? Can ANYTHING be trusted?

what about this?

https://goodlawproject.org/petition/stand-in-solidarity-with-jason-arday/

It’s definitely glee, it doesn’t strike me as particularly incredible. There are instances of this in all professions.

I recall a consultant psychiatrist at a London teaching hospital who turned out not to have a medical degree let alone consultant training. She didn’t even get rumbled on her practice which seemed ok, but because she altered a patient’s will in her favour. She’d practiced in the NHS for over 20 years.

The main person he's let down is himself. He will get work abroad but he's always going to have to live with the fact he's a fake. That goes for anyone else who is arrogant or stupid enough to believe they have a right to be elevated without putting the hard graft in. I don't think we've heard the last of him though.

I don’t see it as glee, more utter incredulity. It’s not just the plagiarism, it’s the wild claims and the fake bio details. Some of the things he’s said are hard to believe, and sit along other things that are also very hard to believe. One of those things would be hard to credit, but to have a whole raft of them and no-one questions them? And then to get into a top position at Cambridge and no-one out of all those supposedly smart people questions him?

It’s the Emperor’s New Clothes. If we’d found out that Andy Burnham, for example, had made all these ridiculous claims, we’d be open-mouthed too. It’s not racist to be gobsmacked at this incredible story. In addition, what really emphasises the stupidity is that the police spent time investigating the journalist who dared to ask questions! ‘Racism’ is the shield that was held forward to try to stop further investigation. It was held forward by people who should know better; who appear to have lost all critical thinking; who nodded along and clapped like idiots, basking in the glow of righteousness.

Why did Arday do/say all this? Why did he claim things so outlandish rather than just tell a few more ‘ordinary’ lies? I’ve no idea. Some people have suggested a Personality Disorder above, and I think that’s possible. I’ve known two such fantasists: one had MH problems and had led a very insular life, not really leaving her hometown. She made up ridiculous things, seemingly unaware that I and others had more experience of the outside world. The other was male, and had a PD. He’d lie about things, then kind of ‘forget’ his lies and barge on, not caring that others would notice they were untrue. In his mind, he’d said them, so they were right because he could never be wrong.

Exactly that. Some academics are there for the research, dislike teaching and aren’t particularly good at it. However accomplished their research, that makes for a disappointing experience for undergraduates.

yeah no one really cares about a thesis except the person that wrote it

Indeed and many other examples...would you be happy with a DEI hire operating on your child's brain tumour.

I'm going to hazard a guess that every single one of us would reply , 'No" but one day, a case like that will hit the headlines.

Not a case like JA that has made most of us laugh at the stupidity of DEI hires but a case that will have serious consequences for every black surgeon who earned their place on merit because none of them will be trusted.

DEI hires have to be stopped because of the damage they will do. It is a bomb waiting to go off.

Do you think anyone actually reads people’s theses anymore? Strikes me, and I might be over simplifying, things are written digitally, read digitally, peer reviewed digitally, shoved on a digital shelf to gather digital dust and forgotten about. Only to be pulled out and scrutinised if the writer happens to be a working class oik who needs his comeuppance.

I don't use X...I can never find my way around it. But I found this via Google and it's better than any research.

https://x.com/GrumpyOW/status/2085743542291296679/video/1

I agree with this.

I agree with this.

This.

The issue with academia is you can be an incredible researcher but dreadful teacher or vice versa though that’s uncommon. Some academics hate teaching and would gladly just sit in a corner researching and writing every day. So yes “bad” academics exist in every university and I’d argue some of the “best” academics work in teaching intensive uni’s aka post 92s.

The Met have a great record of fairness and great practice 😂