The Jason Arday scandal

Sure but it's not just about black academics; it's also about lesser cultural forms being taught and examined leaving students ignorant of the canon.

In ways but I don’t think so. America to me is like a teenager. It’s why they are so ideological and vehemently sure of themselves.

Britain’s different. We have thousands of years more of shared moral values, cultural history or traumas. An imbedded class system. I can see the similarities you mean and I think some ideas have hopped the pond but I do think our troubles are in a way much more complex right now as the class system affects so much of this and we don’t really understand it enough to unravel it.

Basically this is arising more because of how we see ourselves. It’s a crisis of maturity. America is yet to even reach social maturity.

I agree they are indistingushable by their behaviour- i.e. they want the power for themselves and tell everyone else what to do. I only can tell if someone is "right" becuase they blame everything from the "left" and visa versa.

Fascism and Communism are the same thing in the end. Its just elites and then everyone else suffers. Then we have lots of wars and revolutions and the whole thing starts again.

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

And he tried to play the race card. That's an important part of the story.

Can you define "lesser cultural forms"?

I agree that students have been let down by his teaching.

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.

Not surprising in this day and age . The President of the US loudly and publicly spouts lies, half truths and blatantly honours himself . And nothing is done despite him being challenged regularly on his facts .
Surely the benefit of AI is that access to information is easy . School records , dates if Seven Up , all there to check . And FFS a HR department in a call centre checks CVs better than Cambridge seem to have done .
Final thought - how could you take anything he said seriously with those crazy eyes looking at you ?? 😁

Because the BBC are the state funded broadcaster in the UK where Cambridge University exist.

And because I've seen them completely ignore many important stories over the years, and make up stories, edit footage to make baddies look baddier. And harbour/protect/employ child rapists and abusers consistently.

And, mainly, because in the very late 90s/early 2000s they came to the university I was at, told all the white people to leave the lecture room and the non white people were in there all morning. We, the white people, were told to go into the cafe and wait and the people who were with the BBC for the session were told not to disclose what had gone on. And we never found out.

So they have form themselves for DEI box ticking for at least a quarter of a century and so are highly likely to completely ignore stories like this as they all do the same shit. They only report some things when they cannot get away with ignoring some things.

It is not anyone else fault - he lied and deceived and should take full responsibility.

I agree that he - obviously - made accusations of racism wholly inappropriately (and egregiously), but I can understand why when someone is on the receiving end of continual racist rhetoric they might do this if they also tend to think in very (for want of a better phrase!) black and white terms.

It's also not clear from the reporting whether the reporting to the police and engagement of an expensive firm of lawyers came from him or from Cambridge. I'll be interested to see if these examples were Cambridge being reactive, because it would seem to fit with their general approach to his position.

My point is that this "power for themselves" has gone from the fringe of those who identify as being on the "left", to the mainstream of those who identify as being on the "left"; and this will inevitably lead to views from the fringe of those who identify as being on the "right" becoming mainstream. That's why I'm currently more frustrated and disappointed with those who identify as being on the "left" than those who identify with being on the "right".

An example: students learning about global conceptual art and remaining ignorant of the Renaissance.

But not clever enough to write an original PhD.

To all those saying that if he were a white middle aged man, his embellishments and outright lies would be less of a news story, you're probably right.

However, unfortunately for any minority group of people pushing at glass ceilings - whether that's because you are a woman, person of colour, person with a disability or anything else - your success makes you a sort of 'trailblazer' and poster-boy/girl. You therefore - righty or wrongly - carry additional responsibility to represent your 'group' and prove the doubters (racists/agists/misogynists/ableists etc) wrong.

When you fuck up. You don't just fuck up on a personal level, you feed the people who wanted you to fail.

Institutions like Cambridge should KNOW that minority groups - or anyone 'shaking things up' - are going to attract additional scrutiny from the haters so they should be absolutely rigorous on steroids.

I feel sorry for the people of colour, people with learning disabilities, people with health issues, who saw this man and thought he was a beacon of hope. I also think every one of his students deserves a refund.

Hmmmm I think this guy did it deliberately... plenty of black people experience this and wouldn't report someone to the police for it even if they thought it.

I think there is enough evidence that this person has built his personal persona on "being black" and has used that to shut down any justified critque of him.

I don't particularly want to go into the details of the course for reasons of privacy. Let's just say that this particular MPhil had removed the pre-requisite of an undergraduate degree in the same, or a closely related, subject and had reinvented the discipline along left wing globalist lines.

Their broadcast news is not covering it very well. If you had watched the news they referenced plagiarism and doubts about claims he made. It would not be unreasonable for anyone who had only watched the report to think he was a black academic being targeted due to racism.

Genuinely, I would like to know more. What do you mean by 'left-wing globalist lines'?

I work in academia and courses don't get changed dramatically without a very good reason and there will be oversight of the changes.

Not true. From The Times today:

'The concerns were raised by Dr David Harris, an academic at Plymouth Marjon University who had been reviewing Arday’s work as part of a wider research project, and Professor Martyn Hammersley, a sociologist at Open University whom Harris had asked to review.

Emails seen by The Times show that Cremin responded to them by stating that she had held a meeting with Arday regarding the article in question, which had been published in 2018, and that after the meeting Arday had decided to “take the article down from the journal online platform in order to address concerns and re-upload it”.

She went on to write that during the meeting “Arday spoke movingly about his ongoing experiences of direct and indirect racism, and the conditions that he was living in whilst the 2018 article was being prepared (in 2016). At this time he was early career and living away from home whilst dealing with significant health issues.”

She said that though the university took allegations of plagiarism seriously, “we remain immensely proud of Prof Arday’s achievements and scholarship, and … he has our full support”. Cremin concluded her email by saying “we very much hope that this matter has been addressed to your satisfaction”.

Hammersley responded by saying he did not feel the matter had been dealt with satisfactorily and said he believed a “systematic investigation of Professor Arday’s other publications” should be undertaken. That Arday had decided to withdraw his article from the online journal, he added, showed that the plagiarism claims were not “mere allegation but a proven case”. He did not receive a reply.
......

Harris and Hammersley brought their concerns to Cremin after Harris wrote to Arday directly asking him to clear up “certain oddities and confusions” that he had come across while reading his work.

In particular Harris highlighted a number of similarities between a 2018 paper published by Arday and a study by the renowned epidemiologist Anjum Memon and his team. “Please note I have not suggested any explanations for these occurrences, and I am aware that several possibilities are available,” he concluded the email with.
Arday did not initially respond, but wrote back a week later after Harris sent a follow-up message. He did not engage with any of Harris’s critiques and instead accused him of acting “without any reflexivity or humility whatsoever”.

Arday wrote: “Instead of spending your time trying to dismantle racism and ableism, you have spent what I assume is hours combing through my work looking for mistakes and then reporting them to various institutions. I have no problem with constructive criticism, but the tone of your emails are unkind and hostile. You are a monument to the fact we live in a society where grammar is valued above equity. If only all academics were as diligent in their fight for equality as you have been in attending to my spelling.

He asked him not to write to him again, saying that “anything further from you will be considered bullying and harassment”.

When Harris did write again, prefacing his email by stating his admiration for him, Arday reported him to the police for harassment. Devon and Cornwall police later declined to pursue the case'

This sounds like something picked up in a totally normal peer review, not a systematic hunt by right wing racists. The wee fella sounds absolutely nuts. Anyone who has achieved professorial status anywhere should not be spooked by the idea of peer review.

I’d hope that someone aspiring to undertake postgraduate studies at Cambridge would be able to critically evaluate why certain cultural forms are canonical. On what basis are you and your daughter deeming things ‘lesser’?

There’s a huge amount of scholarship on canonicity. Perhaps students who do join that MPhil cohort will enjoy engaging with it.

So they are COVERING it but just in their own unique 'poor victim' way. So not actually covering the story which is institutional capture/plagiarism/total bullshit claims. Oh my, what a surprise.

And this is why I do not watch the BBC!

I am also surprised a student at this level needs Mummy to examine the curriculum and attend open days with them!

As far as the PhD plagiarism goes, I'm surprised there is not more focus on Liverpool John Moores rather than Cambridge, as they awarded the PhD.

I wondered about all this and ask DH an academic - he said he'd seen a link with both phd thesis - main one he said to have plagerised - and run them though some software to look - it came back derivative - and that was with both actual thesiss side by side. He also said it was a very soft fluffy subject area which also didn't help.

He did say it would be reflecting badly on his supervisor(s)- and cast a cloud over their other Phd students - who hopefully have done enough in their careers not to be affected.

However he said there were other things he said that were obvious nonsense and thinks the idea Cambridge wanted a photogenic ethinic minority person with media interest attached made they overlook some obvious concerns may have some validity.

The BBc reporting I heard last night did leave the impression he was a black academic being targeted due to racism.

I do think academica does have an issue with diversity - with female retention as well but none of this helps that.

Fair play I think anyone who "identifies with..." anything in todays political climate is usually a pretty disingenous person.

I get it when it was the oppression of the poor by the elites the personal politics made sense. But today.. its so confusing because they are both as hateful as each other.