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The Jason Arday scandal, part deux

1000 replies

KatiePricesKnickers · 10/08/2026 07:09

As the book launch is coming, let the discussion continue.

First thread: https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5563599-the-jason-arday-scandal?utm_campaign=thread&utm_medium=share
This is lifted from the thread in the education section, which is an interesting summary
https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/the-great-and-unfortunate-story-of?r=8w0woc&triedRedirect=true

Or AIBU with not letting this fade away?

The Great and Unfortunate Story of Jason Arday

A One-Stop Shop For the Craziest Scandal of 2026

https://www.ian-leslie.com/p/the-great-and-unfortunate-story-of?r=8w0woc&triedRedirect=true

OP posts:
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17
SevenYellowHammers · 22/08/2026 16:53

LuckyHazelFox · 22/08/2026 16:48

Now let's get to the quantitative part. Over to you.

Maybe later. If you’re good and can keep a civil tongue in your head. I’m about to watch a film now.

LuckyHazelFox · 22/08/2026 17:08

SevenYellowHammers · 22/08/2026 16:51

What are your dissertations about?

So you can't proffer any quantitative analysis then. Qualitative scrutiny is piss easy, as you've just reeled off generic reference points around grammar and composition. As a teacher of 25 years - information you were happy to share ' I don't want to be teaching you to suck eggs and all that.

LuckyHazelFox · 22/08/2026 17:09

SevenYellowHammers · 22/08/2026 16:53

Maybe later. If you’re good and can keep a civil tongue in your head. I’m about to watch a film now.

Enjoy. I take it it's fiction.

roxyro · 22/08/2026 17:16

@LuckyHazelFox
@Whatevers

Pissing in the wind springs to mind. Certain people will argue black is white rather than admit that not only are they wrong but that they patently don’t know what they’re on about.

Todolisttoolong · 22/08/2026 18:08

Sunnibee · 22/08/2026 13:38

This entire discussion has been about supposed racial differences in IQ and university admissions. Are you now pretending it’s about something else? Nobody is disputing that individuals differ in intelligence, or that IQ has a heritable component. The issue is the leap you’re making from that to assumptions about generalised group differences based on race and wealth, and then the insidious suggestion that those supposed differences justify unequal social and educational outcomes and different social roles across such groups.

Pointing out that some individuals are more intelligent than others is not controversial. Using that fact to construct a racialised and/ or class based hierarchy of social groups and argue that inequality is therefore justified is something different entirely.

Edited

i still didn’t mention race.

So you do not think there is any correlation between intelligence and academic success or academic success and wealth? That will be news to the hundreds of thousands of graduates given that is how the government justifies student loans.

LuckyHazelFox · 22/08/2026 18:09

roxyro · 22/08/2026 17:16

@LuckyHazelFox
@Whatevers

Pissing in the wind springs to mind. Certain people will argue black is white rather than admit that not only are they wrong but that they patently don’t know what they’re on about.

Well said 👏

CreativeGreen · 22/08/2026 18:15

Yeah this thread is eating itself all up. We have explained over and over how appointment to professorship actually works and been told first, well it did work like that and hr was qualified. Then that if he wasn’t maybe the fact that he went to state school and had “lived experience” merited a professorship. Then when reminded all the lived experience was untrue, that his PhD is actually very proper and good based on having glanced through some family members’ phds (and I’ll warrant that was along the lines of “goodness me, I don’t understand any of it but it’s terribly well written and clever, darling!”)

ridiculous.

Todolisttoolong · 23/08/2026 01:26

Coming back to eugenics - it seems the trans identified man who is Rector of Ghent university and who has been campaigning to get Cofnas sacked for some time - is a eugenicist.

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 09:03

LuckyHazelFox · 22/08/2026 06:18

I'm concerned that you still seem to be going after Nathan Cofnas and have turned this into the Cofnas thread. Therefore, I am going to conclude you are anti-semitic.

How is it anti-semitic to critique someone's scholarship?

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 09:08

Todolisttoolong · 22/08/2026 11:27

IQ is an inherited trait (people with high it tend to have children with high IQ). This is a very uncomfortable fact for many people to deal with. It is why there is always likely to be an attainment gap between rich and poor children - higher IQ people tend to be wealthier as they are more capable of making more of their skills and opportunities (as they have high IQs).

Currently the favoured way of dealing with this is to lower the boundaries for poorer people so there are more equal numbers of richer and poorer people in university. Then once out of uni the higher IQ people still take the lead. So then it is ‘well we should positively discriminate in favour of the lower IQ group’. At a societal level we then dumb down and become less productive and less able to compete on the world stage. It might explain how we have ended up with such a miserable selection of politicians across all parties.

IQ is certainly not the only basis for determining success.

LuckyHazelFox · 23/08/2026 09:13

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 09:03

How is it anti-semitic to critique someone's scholarship?

RTFT

LuckyHazelFox · 23/08/2026 09:23

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 09:08

IQ is certainly not the only basis for determining success.

Nobody said it was. It is a good indicator of suitability for academic programmes, however.

Todolisttoolong · 23/08/2026 09:47

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 09:08

IQ is certainly not the only basis for determining success.

Are you familiar with the concept of group averages?

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 10:09

LuckyHazelFox · 23/08/2026 09:23

Nobody said it was. It is a good indicator of suitability for academic programmes, however.

Fair enough, but obviously it's only one indicator, even if only going on cognitive ability (other criteria such as extra-curricular activities aside)

I'm not a psychologist but am familiar with detailed clinical psychology reports re. suitability for university/specific courses of study due to my work and one of my DCs undergoing extensive testing.

Those detailed reports are interesting because in some cases a high (or otherwise) IQ score is attached to a number of qualifying statements about how indicative or not a score is of academic ability/success when accompanied by other cognitive assessments / testing such as the Vineland (adaptive behaviour) or a 'spikey' profile where someone has extremely high ability in one area and extremely low in another. Some of the conclusions include that the individual might (a) had a high IQ and might be highly suitable for advanced academic work only if they had extensive supports, or (b) they may seem highly suitable due to their IQ but their adaptive ability (Vineland) was so low that it wasn't recommended; or (c) while their IQ wasn't notably high their range of other abilities made them highly suitable.

In general, the tendency to essentialise based on IQ seems subject to wide debate - for example, this is interesting
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1745691621991838

Stephen Hawking's comment when asked about his IQ is funny 'I have no idea. People who boast about their IQ are losers'.

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 10:31

LuckyHazelFox · 22/08/2026 10:37

If only you'd put that much research into understanding free inquiry in academia. Mind you, the hierarchy don't much care for it either when Universities are desperately clinging onto DEI hires, at the cost to meritocracy.

Communicating free enquiry is not unlimited, nor is academic freedom if it violates the law - for example in terms of discrimination or slander. Cofnas's suspension is partly on those grounds as Ghent have explained.

PrincessOfPreschool · 23/08/2026 10:41

Sunnibee · 23/08/2026 10:13

This is wonderful, so inspiring. I haven't researched enough to know what truth there is in any allegations - but it's clear Jason was a kind, wise and warm teacher who made others feel safe and understood yet pushed on to better things.

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 10:42

Todolisttoolong · 23/08/2026 09:47

Are you familiar with the concept of group averages?

Do you mean by age group?

Sunnibee · 23/08/2026 11:19

PrincessOfPreschool · 23/08/2026 10:41

This is wonderful, so inspiring. I haven't researched enough to know what truth there is in any allegations - but it's clear Jason was a kind, wise and warm teacher who made others feel safe and understood yet pushed on to better things.

There's very little that's been established either way regarding the allegations. Yet the established media narrative is that he was a "con man". Almost everyone who knew him personally just speaks of what a lovely , humble, gentle person he was and nothing like the media portrayal.

Todolisttoolong · 23/08/2026 12:19

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 10:42

Do you mean by age group?

No. Why would I?

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 12:22

Sunnibee · 23/08/2026 11:19

There's very little that's been established either way regarding the allegations. Yet the established media narrative is that he was a "con man". Almost everyone who knew him personally just speaks of what a lovely , humble, gentle person he was and nothing like the media portrayal.

Just thinking of some posters here ripping Arday to shreds on every conceivable ground including that they thought he looked 'weirdly shiny'

Todolisttoolong · 23/08/2026 12:24

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 10:31

Communicating free enquiry is not unlimited, nor is academic freedom if it violates the law - for example in terms of discrimination or slander. Cofnas's suspension is partly on those grounds as Ghent have explained.

This being the Rector who demands everyone pretends he is a woman, who used AI to write a speech containing fake references and who makes speeches in support of eugenics? And who was sending out emails to try and persuade people to submit complaints about Cofnas months ago in order to try and get rid of him?

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 12:36

Todolisttoolong · 23/08/2026 12:24

This being the Rector who demands everyone pretends he is a woman, who used AI to write a speech containing fake references and who makes speeches in support of eugenics? And who was sending out emails to try and persuade people to submit complaints about Cofnas months ago in order to try and get rid of him?

The letter was issued by the Legal Department of the University, and gives solid grounds for suspension.

Not sure why you're going through that litany about the Rector - who in response to initial protests about Cofnas being hired said dissenting opinions must be allowed in the University.

Do you think the University doesn't have sound legal grounds for dismissing Cofnas or do you just not like the sound of the Rector? You do know they're two different issues, right?

Sunnibee · 23/08/2026 12:41

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 12:36

The letter was issued by the Legal Department of the University, and gives solid grounds for suspension.

Not sure why you're going through that litany about the Rector - who in response to initial protests about Cofnas being hired said dissenting opinions must be allowed in the University.

Do you think the University doesn't have sound legal grounds for dismissing Cofnas or do you just not like the sound of the Rector? You do know they're two different issues, right?

There has to be a tall tale about a nefarious trans woman shoved in somehow , somewhere or it wouldn't be a mumsnet thread 😉

LuckyHazelFox · 23/08/2026 12:51

keepcounsel · 23/08/2026 12:22

Just thinking of some posters here ripping Arday to shreds on every conceivable ground including that they thought he looked 'weirdly shiny'

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