The Jason Arday scandal

No, Munchausen's is where you pretend to be sick now to get sympathy and people looking after you, where Arday just made shit up about his past to make himself sound better.

He made up that he had a masters, that he had volunteered abroad with Water Aid, that he became godfather to the child of a student who had previously beaten him up etc etc. It wasn't just illnesses he fabricated.

I know of people who have made up massive lies that benefited them at that point that could be easily disproven (yet weren't for a long time), he's certainly not unusual in that.

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.

It's totally about class in America. Race can be a class indicator, but that is less and less true.

The black Americans who most benefit from DEI and tend to lead that discourse are professional middle class, which is why it reflects their interests.

The last thing they want is inter racial working class solidarity. Neither do their white counterparts.

I think it less to do with America and much more to do with Social Media dominance and algorithms.

Definitely time to sort that crap out.

I used to know someone who compulsively lied. He'd be off sick from work with a broken arm (with no cast) then go bowling. His lies weren't in any way plausible and we all used to bluntly say 'that's not true, is it...' but still he told lie after lie. He genuinely didn't seem able to control it.

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.

Thing is his family/wife must know and have been enabling or complicit? I mean, if my DH was on TV spinning an absolute bollocks fantasy about himself, I’d die of embarrassment. They are never seen and have not been approached for their corroboration of his stories. It all seems strange.

You're misguided in your thinking. This is exactly the point I was making in 2001. Arday has done a disservice to all black academics. He has used the fact that he is black to advance his position and to give himself status.

This story was always going to be given front page news because of the status of the university, the scale of the lies, and the publicity that was previously afforded to him because of things that have turned out to be lies.

Had he been the same man, with the same story, but white, he probably would have changed the narrative to 'youngest working class' or 'youngest formerly non-verbal'. He still would have hit the headlines for his lies because he chose Cambridge University to showcase them from.

It's common in US I think. I do find it a bit odd though I understand there are reasons the practice started.

I had a dinner conversation once with an English Professor from a Russel Group uni. He argued that there is merit in exploring the idea that Jane Austin might have been non binary or gender bending.

I have not been to uni, so did not argue too much, but, liking Austin a lot I found it a stretch. 😁

Could that be an example?

So you're excusing everything he's done because he's "young and black". Thanks for confirming👍

WTAF?!

This isn’t that difficult to understand, it’s not my area but they’re basically arguing that classifications and algorithms not designed by trans people structure the way that trans people are understood, in ways that feel violent, othering and discriminatory if you are a trans person.

Even if it was hard to understand, I don’t really get why some people seem so incredulous that PhDs aren’t written for the man or woman in the street? A PhD is written for a handful of people, the supervisor and the examiners. A PhD is an exam, you’re showing to people in a very specialised area of research that you’re at the cutting edge of that area of research. Of course there’s specialised and technical language involved, no one would question this if it was maths or science. If someone then undertakes to write a non-academic book, for a general audience, based on their research and the ideas still aren’t easily comprehensible to you, then yeah, in that context, you can complain.

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.

Charges of plagiarism are happening all the time in universities. Which other ones have made the headlines in last 20 years?

I didn’t say JA’s work was comparable to Brian Cox’s, I said his ability to speak clearly and break down difficult theories were similar.

You seem very upset. There is no need. I have a theory about what’s happened here and you have a different one. There’s no need to be rude.

This guy might be the biggest charlatan ever to walk the hallowed corridors of academia or he might be the victim of a smear campaign. We don’t know and maybe we won’t ever fully know.

but what I find extraordinary is that he either worked or studied at least 9 universities including:
Queen Mary’s
John Moores
Institute of Education - London University
Ravensboune
Durham
Cambridge

And they didn’t spot anything untoward. Well in fact John Moore investigated a claim of plagiarism on his PhD but dismissed it as minor and took no further action.

Then he comes under the scrutiny of an academic who appears to believe that Black people can’t progress in academia without positive discrimination.

Then the Telegraph et al go for him with such unfettered delight it’s obscene.

Then he has to resign. Meanwhile, a white professor at Cambridge, similarly accused keeps his job - and the complaint was upheld (William O’ Reilly, historian)

It seems very, very odd to me.

I have not been able to find reliable evidence on the other claims of benign brain tumours and marathons etc. Note I said reliable, not misinformation.

As I say, maybe he’s a charlatan but if so, a great many establishment institutions have failed to notice. Joke is on them!

This isn’t that difficult to understand, it’s not my area but they’re basically arguing that classifications and algorithms not designed by trans people structure the way that trans people are understood, in ways that feel violent, othering and discriminatory if you are a trans person.

Even if it was hard to understand, I don’t really get why some people seem so incredulous that PhDs aren’t written for the man or woman in the street? A PhD is written for a handful of people, the supervisor and the examiners. A PhD is an exam, you’re showing to people in a very specialised area of research that you’re at the cutting edge of that area of research. Of course there’s specialised and technical language involved, no one would question this if it was maths or science. If someone then undertakes to write a non-academic book, for a general audience, based on their research and the ideas still aren’t easily comprehensible to you, then yeah, in that context, you can complain.

What is Arday going to do with the rest of his life?

Maybe run some marathons for charity, dig wells in West Africa. The possibilities are endless.