The Jason Arday scandal

DEI hirings don't work out well.
Was it at Cambridge or Oxford that a black academic debated with Charles Kirk in a track suit and tweeted after CK's death applauding it. And had to resign.

Spaghetti alla word salad

Originally posted on the other thread (where they are having fun using AI to unentangle it) as an example of the kind of sociology our taxes go to fund....
(chosen at random, I promise, from the link to recent Phds awarded by Cambridge):
Through a critical genealogy that traces the colonial classificatory violence of binarity, its implementation into bureaucratic administrative violence of nation states and its automation in contemporary algorithmic violence, this thesis challenges the algorithmic relation to transness, the presumed technooptimist ‘objectivity’ of algorithms and the ways in which the algorithmic organises the necropolitical infrastructures of targeting, surveillance, and cisnormative violence that trans bodies live under. This intervention posits that algorithms—as the computational set of instructions—constitute the channels through which the trans body is classified and translated as information, coded as data, marked-as-different and imbued with necropolitical violence that cannot valorise transness, which position transness against and in tension with the binary valorisation of life itself.

The problem for universities is that academic careers develop over decades, there is no quick fix to problems of underrepresentation.

Ironically, Cambridge have put a lot of effort into widening access, which imo is the only effective way to address things.

He was a student not an academic. It was later revealed he had much lower grades than you'd usually expect to get in

Maybe. But there is some reason to think that widening access can just mean more failure for weaker students. Who would do well or even excell in a less challenging program.

I don't think universities are in much position to help past seeking out some really strong academic kids who might otherwise not apply. And I think maybe they are doing what can be done there already.

The real problems are earlier in life.

One thing this whole scandal has taught me is some White people are loving this just to put one over Black people. Your racism is showing loud and clear! I won't be surprised if some White people are popping champagne over Arday being a fraud.

Regarding George Abaraonye, he did get into Oxford with ABB. But if you actually do your research, you would find out that it is common for Oxbridge to let in candidates who didn't meet their grade requirements for reasons such as them performing extremely well in the interview or tests they set. This doesn't necessarily mean that Abaraonye got in because of DEI, as much as White people want to claim. A white boy in my sixth form got into Cambridge with A*BB because he did extremely well in the interview.

Be careful, your racism is showing. You do know that people of all colours like a bit of Moet, don’t you? I prefer Veuve Clicquot, myself, but won’t be drinking it to celebrate a scammer who has done immeasurable harm to the perception of and academic opportunities available to autistic kids.

One thing this whole scandal has taught me is some White people are loving this just to put one over Black people. Your racism is showing loud and clear! I won't be surprised if some White people are popping champagne over Arday being a fraud.

Regarding George Abaraonye, he did get into Oxford with ABB. But if you actually do your research, you would find out that it is common for Oxbridge to let in candidates who didn't meet their grade requirements for reasons such as them performing extremely well in the interview or tests they set. This doesn't necessarily mean that Abaraonye got in because of DEI, as much as White people want to claim. A white boy in my sixth form got into Cambridge with A*BB because he did extremely well in the interview.

So, you think Arday is in Bryan Cox’s league? I attach a screen shot of just the abstract for his PhD thesis. Feel free to compare to Arday’s. There is a very distinct difference between explaining complex concepts in simple language for the lay person - usually a skill only achievable by those who have a profound understanding of the concepts they are explaining - and not being able to use that language at all.

The reason he got to his role as ridiculously quickly as he did is because he was subject to LESS scrutiny than his white middle class peers (and the female ones from disadvantaged and NON-middle class backgrounds who were passed over to give him this role). In fact, when the THE/Grover approached him in 2025 to ask questions in the line of his job - to do the professional scrutiny into Arday’s qualifications as required of his job - Grover was accused of racially motivated harassment and ordered to stop. Less scrutiny, not more.

And ‘AI’ didn’t make a mistake. Plagiarism detection software is what is used, not AI - and it has been in use in universities for years - you are required to run your assignments and essays through it (eg Turnitin) prior to submitting in for marking, address any errors, and then tick a box to say you have done so. That is what was used to screen his work. Erm, and you do know that these people were able to refer to the original thesis that he plagiarised to corroborate the findings of the plagiarism detection software, don’t you? They didn’t draw their conclusions on a ‘hunch’ like you? After all, freedom of speech is a very fragile right and is counter-balanced by laws of defamation and libel in the UK, one which journalists and newspapers are very careful to protect themselves being prosecuted for… usually by double and triple checking their facts before going to press.

And the truth? Perhaps you should take a look at the videos of former class mates and Sunday School compatriots who state very clearly that this guy was not mute or learning disabled and was in mainstream school along side them, chatting and singing away on the Sunday school bus. They are furious at the way he has besmirched the reputations of black people and the impact this may have on others aspiring to be university professors. Just as I am livid that he has pretended to have overcome mutism, global developmental delay, had multiple brain tumours so ‘forgot’ his thesis, when I have watched a best friend die from his brain tumour and also watched the year long recovery my step mother went through with hers. And for him to blame his autism - or YOU to conjure up some autistic savant level text-memorising skill as a hypothesis for fuck knows what, as you do in another of your posts - is frankly despicable.

I could absolutely not give a flying fuck about his skin colour. But I do care about the potential damage he has done to the perception and inclusion of autistic people in academia, about the impact this will have on future autistic/ND, black and disadvantaged students gaining access, about the way it may devalue the PhD I have been preparing for submission - and for what it reveals about the erosion of professional standards and lack of robust recruitment processes that have arisen out of DEI driven policies that have created a climate of silence around people like Arday.

So no, it hasn’t been a witch hunt. No, he is not undeserving of every bit of ridicule and derision that comes his way - as loudly from members of his own black community - and no, he was not set up.

So because he’s black he’s a DEI hire? Wow

I'm not trying to be offensive, but why do you feel the need to capitalize the words white and black? Do you also capitalize other words used to describe intrinsic characteristics like male, female, homosexual, heterosexual? Grammatically it's really weird and jarring.

A lot of White love his scandal, because they can show their racism and not feel bad about it because of Arday's lies.
You would think Arday killed somebody with the way this is dominating headlines. If Arday was White, I don't think this even makes the newspapers, let alone the front pages.

I actually completely agree with you about the issues needing to be addressed far. far earlier in life, also that if widening access just means lowering entry standards it will result in no positives for anyone.

I was more thinking of barriers stopping talented pupils from accessing the opportunities that other teenagers are able to take for granted. I grew up in a very working class area, and the idea of applying to Oxbridge was simply not there. When I applied to Oxford I might as well have been applying for a programme to become an astronaut, the idea seemed so bizarre. Despite there being a few people in my year who had the ability to go- and probably would have done if they had come from a more privileged background.

Why would you think he’s autistic 😂

Honestly this is so funny.

Exactly.

I don't think most British people born before 1990 (?) had even heard of Rosa Parks growing up. But everyone born since has been force fed stories of her, almost as if she were one of our own.

George Floyd was American. The BLM movement came from him.

American footballer Colin Kaepernick was the first to take the knee before a match. For a time it looked as if it was compulsory in Premier League matches.

Even the dreaded n-word is American, whereas forty years ago it was only known as something from Huckleberry Finn.

Nearly all the rap songs that use the n-word, and call for attacks on the police, are American.

British society has swallowed American views on all of this. Whole and undigested.

I wonder how many current British schoolchildren realise that there were never black slaves in the UK? That there were effectively no black people here until the 1950s? That the 1960s may have been characterised by the civil rights movement across the Atlantic, where there was still massive discrimination, but here we were swinging and it was all about mini skirts, Profumo, the Beatles and the end of the Chatterly ban.

History is being rewritten before our eyes, and we are being forced to sign up to American guilt.

I'm not trying to be offensive, but why do you feel the need to capitalize the words white and black? Do you also capitalize other words used to describe intrinsic characteristics like male, female, homosexual, heterosexual? Grammatically it's really weird and jarring.

Not sure what your point is - but no I am not sure he is autistic at all, but Arday claims he is.

Why you find that funny is beyond me,

What do you mean when you say 'woke nonsense'?

The fact that you replied to me means I touched a nerve!
Arday is clearly a fraud and what he did was wrong. However, nobody has died. I am astounded that this has made front page news. If he was White, nobody would even care, he would have just resigned silently.

Maybe- but we have been in bed with the US and have caught whatever virus is effecting their brain for the last 10 years.

Time to separate.

Then don't read my post mate!

Anyone else think Arday may have Munchausen syndrome?

A lot of White love his scandal, because they can show their racism and not feel bad about it because of Arday's lies.
You would think Arday killed somebody with the way this is dominating headlines. If Arday was White, I don't think this even makes the newspapers, let alone the front pages.