The Jason Arday scandal

How many people now think that the was cleared of plagiarism for reasons other than him being innocent of plagiarism?

He was targeted because he lied, not because of his skin colour.

By a University that he only had one supervision session at.

They of course don't want him - a superstar student- to be revealed to have been plagerised.

Oh and apparently in his biography he claims he lost all of his memory before his viva and had to relearn his thesis.

It needs to be an independent review.

I hate to say this, but when I read that his PhD was about peer mentoring between trainee PE teachers, I thought that perfectly explained the lack of scrutiny (and indeed rigour).

I hate to say this, but when I read that his PhD was about peer mentoring between trainee PE teachers, I thought that perfectly explained the lack of scrutiny (and indeed rigour).

Lots to think about in this case. It’s very sad personally and institutionally.

Several worrying things about it are true at the same time as much as some people would like it to be a simple good vs evil tale. Arday is obviously a fantasist, but it’s also obviously the case that racism is at play.

Otherwise how could he be such a unicorn in the first place? He’s sounding like he’s been amplified in his over claiming by institutions for years. they have wanted to support these fantasies and have not spend the money and taken the time to do due diligence to check on things and that’s not OK either.

This kind of thing surely becomes inevitable when you make vast cuts to university budgets. Back office processes will get skipped. People change jobs a lot more as contracts are shortened and take home pay gets worse. Nobody wants to see the HR bill go up accordingly so things get skipped.

The risks of that worrying institutional behaviour way overshadows one person trying his luck as a chancer, yet the reporting of it is very skewed towards blaming Arday personally. Cambridge is just the most recent in a line of employers that haven’t checked claims. How many other less grandiose Ardays are there still there? This case rightly or wrongly is going to cause more burden on academics and institutions and back office processes because of this huge level of scrutiny the media have brought.

I also hate this media narrative of ‘everyone exaggerates their CV’ no I bloody don’t. I think a lot of women in fact women do the opposite. Underplay female achievement. So this will have a chilling effect on female promotion, which will be really depressing.

And I feel really sad for all the academics of colour who have struggled to get where they are now based on their merit and talents in a predominantly white academy, which will have been much much harder for them to do. They will feel singled out for skepticism of their appointments due to this case which is horrible.

I don’t know how you can fact check or challenge anyone’s claims of autism or if we should even try to do that ever… but I worry that the media presentation of autism as a big part of the picture when an individual has done something bad; will make other people feel autistic people are not genuine or autistic people are prone to lying about their achievements, or that people who say they’re autistic should not be believed, and they’re trying to make an excuse.

Not saying these are comparable acts at all but lately some prominent murderers or attackers have said they’re autistic when defending their case which I found really upsetting. The autistic people I know couldn’t countenance lying and in fact often get in trouble for being way too honest and direct, and obviously wouldn’t hurt a fly.

So this Arday case is confusing and upsetting because of what it uncovers. And I hope the one individual at the centre is OK because this is a lot. As well as all the other people hurt by this. As PP have said, there is a whole system of male over-promotion. Tale as old as time!

We don’t get this level of correction and interest normally so what is that saying about our employers and our society and its culture and value it places on individual or group achievement and/or barriers and struggle to achieve for individuals and groups?

By a University that he only had one supervision session at.

They of course don't want him - a superstar student- to be revealed to have been plagerised.

Oh and apparently in his biography he claims he lost all of his memory before his viva and had to relearn his thesis.

It needs to be an independent review.

Why do you think Nathan Cofnas, vocal racist, targeted him?

Is it nuance, though? If she had been promoted as a stunning writer representative of contemporary white female literary culture, then yes, it would undermine other white female writers. She wasn’t obviously. But she was promoted for writing autobiography and for writing about CBD and a potential cure. For the damage she has done, she has been vilified by families of CBD sufferers and by society at large for the negative impact she has had on the genre of biographical fiction.

JA was heralded as a representative of disadvantage black youth and as a representative of the disabled community through his autism, GDD and mutism. It was these DEI characteristics that got him speaking engagements, TV appearances, a book deal and, yes, led him to be cherry picked by Cambridge and then celebrated vastly in the media by all. His race was core to his usp.

You can’t leverage your race on the one hand and then cry foul when legitimate questions are asked about the voracity of your qualifications and experience - which is absolutely seems to have done in his dealings with Grove of the THE, when it was Grove’s job to investigate and explore the world of academia. I am sure he has investigated many academics of all skin shades.

I do think that this will now be leveraged by despicable parties within the right wing - but Cambridge, JA and everyone involved in his career who did not do their due diligence has to accept that this is a natural and anticipatory result of placing someone utterly unqualified and ill-equipped into a role purely because you have a DEI agenda.

There are, fortunately, some extraordinary black academics with a media presence: Prof Chris Jackson (volcanologist in the BBC Pompeii series), Prof David Olusoga (historian too many programmes to list) and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock the astrophysicist.

The media now needs to remind the public of these incredible individuals and look to the paths into academia they took, and ensure other clever motivated black kids can do the same - and have their achievements equally recognised.

He also claimed that the reason that his thesis was obviously copied was because he didn't have proper support while writing it, and because his autism led him to use mimicry as a coping strategy.

So if he had been stripped of his PhD, this could have launched a claim against the university for not properly supporting disadvantaged SEND students and then penalising them for this lack of support.

Which I imagine the HR dept was very keen to avoid.

Why do you think Nathan Cofnas, vocal racist, targeted him?

And if he didn't train and qualify as a teacher, then what informed his PhD thesis about trainee PE teachers??

Maybe you can be 2 things at once, so oppose DEI appointments but also spot a lying fantasist at 100 paces unlike his colleagues?

Someone else's thesis? 😁

Why do you think Nathan Cofnas, vocal racist, targeted him?

I can't speak for the bit you heard, but in terms of Today on Radio 4 yesterday morning, its segment on Arday followed a similar pattern to the BBC television news report I've referred to above - it had interviews with those same two people, Kehinde Andrews in defence of Arday and claiming this has come about owing to racism, and Kathleen Stocks suggesting otherwise, and that this is about broader questions for universities on academic integrity and pursuing a DEI agenda blindly etc. It's worth saying that when Kehinde Andrews was being interviewed, and defending Arday, the presenter did challenge him and his defence of Arday, pointing out many of the accusations of plagiarism and discrepancies in his biography that we know about.

Incidentally, I'm not saying the BBC is perfect - of course it isn't - but I don't think it has been one-sided in its coverage of this Arday story from what it I've seen, heard, and read.

Someone else's thesis? 😁

Is it nuance, though? If she had been promoted as a stunning writer representative of contemporary white female literary culture, then yes, it would undermine other white female writers. She wasn’t obviously. But she was promoted for writing autobiography and for writing about CBD and a potential cure. For the damage she has done, she has been vilified by families of CBD sufferers and by society at large for the negative impact she has had on the genre of biographical fiction.

JA was heralded as a representative of disadvantage black youth and as a representative of the disabled community through his autism, GDD and mutism. It was these DEI characteristics that got him speaking engagements, TV appearances, a book deal and, yes, led him to be cherry picked by Cambridge and then celebrated vastly in the media by all. His race was core to his usp.

You can’t leverage your race on the one hand and then cry foul when legitimate questions are asked about the voracity of your qualifications and experience - which is absolutely seems to have done in his dealings with Grove of the THE, when it was Grove’s job to investigate and explore the world of academia. I am sure he has investigated many academics of all skin shades.

I do think that this will now be leveraged by despicable parties within the right wing - but Cambridge, JA and everyone involved in his career who did not do their due diligence has to accept that this is a natural and anticipatory result of placing someone utterly unqualified and ill-equipped into a role purely because you have a DEI agenda.

There are, fortunately, some extraordinary black academics with a media presence: Prof Chris Jackson (volcanologist in the BBC Pompeii series), Prof David Olusoga (historian too many programmes to list) and Dr Maggie Aderin-Pocock the astrophysicist.

The media now needs to remind the public of these incredible individuals and look to the paths into academia they took, and ensure other clever motivated black kids can do the same - and have their achievements equally recognised.

Maybe. Possibly. Probably. But if there'd been nothing to find he'd have found nothing. And yet here we are.

And where we are is ultimately, regardless of "influences" along the way, down to Jason Arday, no one else.

Prof David Olusoga is a lying fantasist as well.

He may well have exaggerated in his biography, probably wouldn't be the first to do so, but the fact remains he has been investigated and cleared of plagiarism.

So with no idea what news segment I heard you've decided what I can't possibly have walked away with the impression I did.

Implying what - that I'm lying - why would I bother this is a chat forum -that I'm anti BBC - I'm disappointed in some of their output and their news IMO has gone down hill in last decade- but we actually do still pay thelicence fee and listen to their radio output.

The news story caught my attention becuase DH works in academica but I walked away with initial impression it was mainly about racism beacuse after a brief round up of story there was a clip of another black academic finishing the peice saying that.

I didn't hear all the interviews with all the people you listed - I wasn't watching TV and that wasn't part of the radio story I heard - which wasn't the today program - I stopped listening to that years ago - now do hear world at 1 PM and BBC sounds news updates via alexa and it was one of those yesterday evening I heard- so if you want to go through all those and prove that in your view I can't have reasonable walked away from BBC reporting with view of story I did - have at it .