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The Jason Arday scandal

853 replies

Ilikesundays · 06/08/2026 21:55

To think that Cambridge University’s reputation has been shot to pieces by the revelations about ex-professor Jason Arday?

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2021x · 07/08/2026 12:52

Gwenhwyfar · 07/08/2026 12:45

"Has the white author Raynor Wynn set back the literary white community by several decades through her lies?"

I would argue it's hurt publishers. I don't trust them any more. I also read that the publishers of Arday's book will not pull it even though it's full of lies.

This is where I think the nuance lies.

Most modern writers are white women and so there is a bigger pool of their books- so if one is the work of fiction when they say its fact then so be it.

There are not that many black writers in the UK which is probably why he was named a superstar. We are not the US there is a much smaller and more concentrated population. Therefore it stands out more if a black man is a fantasist. Also white women in the UK are not a monolith in general, but black men are still lumped together.

2021x · 07/08/2026 12:54

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2026 12:49

Not sure of your meaning? "This guy" = the massive racist, "jumped the gun" = published his substack blog before the journalist, "had a hard-on for" = racistly keen to take down a black colleague?

Yup you got it. Well done.

Noodledog · 07/08/2026 12:56

YourAmplePlumPoster · 07/08/2026 12:02

This is not victimless is it, if students work was jeapardised?

I'd be furious if I had worked hard to get the grades for admission to Cambridge and then paid ten of thousands of pounds to study there only to end up being taught by Arday.

I suspect there are former students of his currently looking into whether legal action against the university and Jesus College (where Arday was a fellow and presumably taught tutorials to Jesus students) is viable. And I really hope they can get their money back, they have been completely failed by Cambridge.

LuckyHazelFox · 07/08/2026 12:57

Education is driven by statistics because it's primarily business based and all about the funding. A pursuit of quality has been in name only for decades. In HE, the competition and kudos that surrounds publications is quite laughable. I'm dining out on popcorn for a while.

icingonmycupcake · 07/08/2026 12:57

Recent investigative scrutiny has systematically dismantled Arday’s publicized biography, revealing extensive fabrications and inconsistencies across almost every major claim. No independent clinical or medical records have ever been produced to verify his severe childhood developmental delay, autism diagnosis, or brain tumor. Under pressure from journalists, Arday conceded that his £5.5 million fundraising boast was actually the collective work of a 100-person syndicate, while his primary named beneficiary, the Shooting Star Children’s Hospice, revealed his actual personal contribution over his lifetime was only £10,800. His treadmill running claims were quietly walked back from six days to twelve, while WaterAid and the universities of Glasgow and Ohio State all formally refuted his claims of overseas volunteering or visiting professorships. Chronologically impossible assertions, such as childhood participation on the legendary television series Seven Up—which aired 21 years before he was born—were walked back by Arday under the claim that he was referring to an unrecorded, local community Black mothers’ initiative. Furthermore, the London Metropolitan Police and local merchants categorically denied his dramatic accounts of receiving a severed pig’s head or being stalked in his faculty office by a masked, knife-wielding intruder, with university logs showing no upgraded CCTV captures or panic alarm activations to support either incident.

It's not just the plagiarism. His whole back story is a complete work of fiction.

I can't believe there are people defending this guy with whataboutisms, 'it's a victimless crime' and the potential threat of suicide.

Have a word with yourselves. 🙄

Gloriia · 07/08/2026 12:58

DuchessDandelion · 07/08/2026 12:46

Well scholarly types aren't always known for common sense.

I think its clear in this case that there was at play a combination of good will/wanting to believe/fear of being dubbed racist or ableist/quick wins for publicity & diversity figures etc

Yes and I can undertand that. I know they won't be expecting liars and fantasists you'd just think their supposed critical thinking skills would have got the better of them and someone would have smelt a rat. 2 shit gcses then a doctorate, even the a marathon a day for a month, surely?!

PinkFrogss · 07/08/2026 13:00

I don’t quite understand how or why this has gotten so much media attention. I’ve seen far more news stories (which are even considered important enough for breaking news notifications from apps) than I have about Simon Goldhill.

DuchessDandelion · 07/08/2026 13:01

Gloriia · 07/08/2026 12:58

Yes and I can undertand that. I know they won't be expecting liars and fantasists you'd just think their supposed critical thinking skills would have got the better of them and someone would have smelt a rat. 2 shit gcses then a doctorate, even the a marathon a day for a month, surely?!

Well yes but then I was taken in by Raynor Winn, so who am i to criticise!

(Albeit I was personally invested & looking for hope in a hopeless situation. I am less naive now!)

Dovesono · 07/08/2026 13:02

Putting aside the race issue, it's not inherently ableist to suggest that someone with a disability is not able to achieve certain things, whether they be physical or intellectual. That is literally what disabled means. Plenty of sources are saying it's (literally) incredible that someone could go from being mute and illiterate while at school to becoming a Cambridge professor before they hit 40.

Obviously, however, it's very important to be specific here about what those things are, and that's where it gets complicated. Could someone with, say, cerebral palsy become a brilliant mathematician? In theory, yes, and if not then they're just the same as the c.99% of the general population who also aren't brilliant mathematicians. Could someone with dyscalculia become a brilliant mathematician? Probably not.

DuchessDandelion · 07/08/2026 13:02

Gwenhwyfar · 07/08/2026 12:50

This time true though?

Well, if I were a betting woman...

2021x · 07/08/2026 13:03

DuchessDandelion · 07/08/2026 13:01

Well yes but then I was taken in by Raynor Winn, so who am i to criticise!

(Albeit I was personally invested & looking for hope in a hopeless situation. I am less naive now!)

And you were reading a story not hiring someone as a professor at Cambridge University,

DuchessDandelion · 07/08/2026 13:04

2021x · 07/08/2026 13:03

And you were reading a story not hiring someone as a professor at Cambridge University,

Yes, true, thank you for being gracious

LuckyHazelFox · 07/08/2026 13:04

PinkFrogss · 07/08/2026 13:00

I don’t quite understand how or why this has gotten so much media attention. I’ve seen far more news stories (which are even considered important enough for breaking news notifications from apps) than I have about Simon Goldhill.

Herein lies the problem and which is why he got away with it for so long.

2021x · 07/08/2026 13:06

PinkFrogss · 07/08/2026 13:00

I don’t quite understand how or why this has gotten so much media attention. I’ve seen far more news stories (which are even considered important enough for breaking news notifications from apps) than I have about Simon Goldhill.

Hi Jason!

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2026 13:06

PinkFrogss · 07/08/2026 13:00

I don’t quite understand how or why this has gotten so much media attention. I’ve seen far more news stories (which are even considered important enough for breaking news notifications from apps) than I have about Simon Goldhill.

You genuinely can't see why this story is getting traction? The guy who has made the most batshit claims imaginable, who was nonetheless believed by the academic elite?

Sexual misconduct stories on the other hand are ten-a-penny.

Vaxtable · 07/08/2026 13:07

I do t understand how Cambridge even got in this mess. Where’s the due diligence? Surely you check with other institutions

MrsKeats · 07/08/2026 13:09

I’m curious as to how he was ever awarded a PhD. I thought there was rigorous checking of those.

JJkate · 07/08/2026 13:09

Goingmadddd · 07/08/2026 11:36

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.

@Goingmadddd could you expand on the class issue? This is such a fascinating story and I agree there are so many aspects to it.

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2026 13:09

DuchessDandelion · 07/08/2026 13:01

Well yes but then I was taken in by Raynor Winn, so who am i to criticise!

(Albeit I was personally invested & looking for hope in a hopeless situation. I am less naive now!)

There are many parents of autistic children who were similarly given hope by the now obviously false claims of Arday. It's pretty horrible, to be let down by the people you assumed would have done their due diligence.

PinkFrogss · 07/08/2026 13:09

2021x · 07/08/2026 13:06

Hi Jason!

I’m not Jason (I imagine he’s too busy concocting stories to post on MN Grin).

NobleGiraffe makes a good point though. Sexual misconduct is less news worthy as it is far more common. Sadly.

Seeingadistance · 07/08/2026 13:09

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2026 12:34

Don't get me wrong, I am not defending Arday. But to suggest that there's no racist motive anywhere in this story and it's all simply about outing a fantasist would be incorrect.

And of course there's plenty now for racists to pick over in the whole 'DEI appointment' angle.

Unfortunately, his race is very relevant as it seems that Cambridge wanted the DEI kudos of appointing the youngest black professor in their history. And they have done untold damage to the many black academics, students and professionals who have succeeded through their own hard work, intelligence and integrity.

There have been other instances and media coverage of people claiming to be someone or something they were not. Off the top of my head I can think of the case of the 30 year old man who posed as a teenager - went back to school to have another go at getting into uni. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60081503

He wasn't black - and there was huge media coverage of that story. But unlike the Jason Arday case, that was a one-off and not linked to a wider political and ideological problem which is now being exposed.

Brian Mackinnon

Brandon Lee: The model school pupil who was a 30-year-old imposter

A new film tells the tale of a man who posed as 17-year-old to return to his old high school.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-60081503

Shedmistress · 07/08/2026 13:10

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2026 12:42

We know that Nathan Cofnas is a massive racist and we know that he called out Arday for plagiarism and other wild claims while Cofnas himself worked as an academic at Cambridge uni.

"Accusations of plagiarism in Arday's work were first voiced by Nathan Cofnas - a US researcher and self-defined "race realist", whose role at a Cambridge college was terminated after backlash to his view that under a true meritocracy black people would "disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment".
He claimed on Substack that he had put Arday's work through a plagiarism detection software, which found that "many passages are lifted with minimal editing, sometimes retaining copy-editing mistakes from the original source"."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c1e146jw618o

(I'm not sure if the Times higher ed journalist got the story before Cofnas but we know he was told by the police to drop it so I don't think he published?)

So by ignoring the message and all the other people that raised issues, they are basically proving a racist right.

Over and over and over again we get this happening.

If nobody can call out evident bullshit because they will be accused of an ism, then this feeds the people who ARE the ism who then get hailed as some sort of hero for exposing the bullshit.

2021x · 07/08/2026 13:10

This reply has been deleted

Message deleted by MNHQ. Here's a link to our Talk Guidelines.

noblegiraffe · 07/08/2026 13:11

Shedmistress · 07/08/2026 13:10

So by ignoring the message and all the other people that raised issues, they are basically proving a racist right.

Over and over and over again we get this happening.

If nobody can call out evident bullshit because they will be accused of an ism, then this feeds the people who ARE the ism who then get hailed as some sort of hero for exposing the bullshit.

Yes indeed. This is something Tommy Robinson has profited from.