The Jason Arday scandal

I hope those claims are investigated. There shouldn't have been an environment fostered where students felt threatened into silence. Where the hell was the duty of care in all of this debacle?

Apparently one student did complain and another lecturer sat in one of his lectures and agreed the complaints were valid but asked the student not to mske the complaint official as he was leaving that establishment soon.

It is unfortunate for the reputation of contemporary discourse around racism that Jason Arday, who was an apparently a poster boy and a leading light in that discourse, appears to be a fraud.

Poor soul. I hope your boy can find something and find a place for himself.

I would doubt that. Even when they passed their exams they weren't fully admitted to the university. Some years ago I saw a play about the Cambridge opposition and male student riots of 1897 against a proposal that women be granted their degrees. The context was that there was huge resistance in society to the notion of women's education, which meant a choice between participation in normal society or being a spinster. The student rioters hung effigies on buildings of women riding bicycles as even that activity was seen as dangerously subversive. Long after 1948, there remained strong opposition to admitting women to certain male colleges. Cambridge has enjoyed a long tradition as a bastion of maleness.

And who said slave trade was simple?

It makes no difference whatsoever to the discourse around definitions of racism which is what I was referring to.

However your post is a salutary reminder that when white men go wrong it’s seen as individual failure, whereas a black man is seen as representative of the reputation of the race as a whole.

In short, racists love a good crow don’t they?

Now why does that not surprise me.

That’s right. And the concern in 1897 among the undergraduates was that if women could graduate it would downgrade the value of a degree.

That poster is very far removed from being a racist.

It's funny, his race was entirely irrelevant to my comment which was focused entirely on his academic reputation.

If a person prominent and lauded in some other academic field turned out to be a fraud whose work, when scrutinised by a lay person looked like a bunch of crap, do you not think that would be damaging to the reputation of that field?

That’s not true is it. Your post focused on “the reputation of contemporary discourse around racism” in relation to Arday who is apparently a “poster boy and leading light” for it.

You didn’t actually mention his academic field.

But that is his academic field which he has commented and published widely on? Why else would he be a poster boy and leading light for it? His colleagues said his research was marvellous?

I'm a bit confused as to why you think my comment was about his race and not his work on the discourse around racism, when I was responding directly to your comment about the discourse around racism.

Did anyone subscribe to carry on reading? I didn’t.

How many times do people read links that are posted? Or just do what I did and read first paragraph before it went before paywall?

And yet we post links or suggest people read Guardian (I get a couple of free articles but I’m mostly banned because I won’t pay!) but no one or few of us study the articles, we just point score.

Of the allegations about what JA might have done wrong which are factual? Which are rumours? Which are opinions? Which are lies? Which are disinformation? Which are motivated by racism or hubris or revenge? Who is going to check each one and how will their opinion on it be checked?

What’s that thing about an enigma in a riddle within a conundrum?

This is what technology has done to debate ladies. No one’s to blame, we’re all too busy to check and recheck references.

Back in the day you sat in a library with a notebook or 10 and wrote your dissertation from those notes. I used to write the dewy code numbers up my arms , collect books, read, make notes, write the reference (Harvard) onto index cards and get into a right knot with footnotes, ibid, citations and all that. Then I typed it myself using windows 98, checking as I went.

If I wanted to go online I started dial up and got a coffee whilst I waited. Nowadays, the temptation to paste, use AI etc must be enormous.

Certainly, when I was full time teaching, it was midnight and I had to be up at 5, I took short cuts.

I’m quite convinced that we’ve moved from days of lecturing being the means words from the lecturer’s notes to the student’s without going through brains of either to AI having a conversation with itself.

If JA has no ability at all, then some so called eminent people have not done their jobs and are far more culpable than he is.

We can accuse them of blatant positive discrimination, of box ticking and quota filling.

I think though, the truth is far more mundane. JA is hardworking and industrious, he was built up as, is it crass to say, a Great Black Hope and under those circumstances, couldn’t deliver. As most humans wouldn’t either.

The glee, name calling and fun poking at this man has been most unedifying. Let he (or she) who has no sin cast the first stone. As another, much maligned bloke once said.

Final thought, the media or more broadly, the culture industry, builds people up to knock them down. It’s a national pastime.

Of the allegations about what JA might have done wrong which are factual?

He definitely claimed, on video, to have a masters in psychodynamics from Birkbeck which he doesn't, as confirmed by Birkbeck, but you waved that video away as a deep fake so it's hard to know exactly what evidence would convince you.

I like to treat people equally. I don't believe that any particular type of person is inferior or superior to anyone else. This is regardless of historical injustices or experiences. People are prejudiced against me, I just have to get on with it. Life is unfair.

Contemporary discourses about what constitutes racism is what's led to this ridiculous situation with this man. Black and disabled people are not cute pets to be indulged and mollycoddled. Standards are necessary, indeed vital in many occupations.

Surely racism is a component part because he was appointed partly because of his race.
The Professor from Cyprus who was on the panel has published about too much 'whiteness' in education.

His field is sociology. Why would general discourse around racism be affected if one contributor is a Walter Mitty? How would one rogue academic affect the discussion around Chaucer?

@smallglassbottle Contemporary discourses about what constitutes racism is what's led to this ridiculous situation with this man. Black and disabled people are not cute pets to be indulged and mollycoddled. Standards are necessary, indeed vital in many occupations.

In what way has discussion around racism led to this situation? This event has been caused by insufficient checks on academic work, flaws in the hiring of staff, and the personality flaws of an individual.

The hiring of Walter Mitty types is not specific to any particular sector or institution, it happens across the board. But I’ve not seen another where it’s implied the whole subject should be shut down. Cambridge just needs more rigorous selection procedures.

In find your sentence on black or disabled people tone deaf and distasteful.

What exactly was his work about? I mean the work that got him appointed as a Cambridge professor that wasn't his PhD about trainee PE teachers?

This is what Cambridge said when it appointed him:

"Arday is a highly respected scholar of race, inequality and education, with a particular interest in improving the representation of Black, Asian and Minority Ethnic people in higher education. He will take up the post of Professor of Sociology of Education in the Faculty of Education, University of Cambridge, on 6 March."

https://faculty.educ.cam.ac.uk/230223-jason-arday

You don't think it's affected if a highly respected scholar of that discourse at Cambridge university is a fraud whose work appears to be junk? It doesn't just speak of him, does it, but of everyone around him who boosted him, respected him and spoke highly of him. What does it say of his work in improving black representation at universities when he charmed, lied and plagiarised his way to a professorship?

He has also given validation to the racist Cofnas who thinks that black people aren't clever enough to become professors, who called him out as an example and who, unfortunately, has turned out to be completely correct in Arday's case.

I mean, it's a bit of a set-back, don't you think? You cannot pretend that you can isolate him from his work, his colleagues working in the same area and his many genuinely given accolades (as opposed to the falsely claimed ones).

@noblegiraffe Why are you googling at me, we all know what his special interests are. I was just pointing out that the actual subject is sociology.

The teaching of French romantic poets wouldn’t be in question just because one of its specialists turned out to be a fantasist, or any other area of study.,

The implication is not that Cambridge should not employ someone covering this subject area, simply that he was the wrong choice.

All those people who only ever consider the British involvement, ignore the African involvement and are totally ignorant of every other country's involvement.

Of course anything else doesn't fit the rhetoric but then not everyone has the same definition of racism.

I'm googling at you because you suggested I was a racist for mentioning Jason Arday, a professor working in the discourse around racism, might have damaged the reputation of that discourse. I mean, that's a hugely offensive accusation that you haven't backed down from.

Pointing out the 'actual subject is sociology' is completely irrelevant to the point that I was making.

The teaching of 'French romantic poets' might be in question, don't you think if one of it's specialists, who French romantic poet specialists around him said was one of best scholars in French romantic poets turned out to someone whose work was actually a pile of crap when it wasn't copied from other people. It would be even more in doubt if that guy himself was held up as a great example of a French romantic poet himself and it turned out he lied and wasn't even French but used google translate to write his poetry.

I get that you are trying to engage in damage limitation, but it is, in fact, hugely damaging what Jason did and genuine scholars should be furious at the mess he has left in his wake and he has probably made things more difficult for any black academics coming up behind him.

And who on this thread has ignored: a. African involvement b. The involvement of other countries?

I’ve never encountered someone who wasn’t aware, surely that’s simply the basics?

Why is "whiteness" flung around as some kind of accusation of guilt?