The Jason Arday scandal, part deux

[KatiePricesKnickers]

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?

It is interesting to see just how many people are posting because they feel vindicated in their opinions of his story being about racism/exadurated or just purely to boost they were on the side of a dead man. Mumsnet can be so odd sometimes. Not exactly the right react to hearing this guy is dead.

The idea Mumsnet should remove a thread out of respect for the family is weird too, though no doubt this may happen. Unfortunately I feel it has more to do with this thread containing evidence the story is not one of a saintly character or a progressive far left university etc. Anyway what will be will be regarding this thread.

If he was white and NT, would you be saying we shouldn't care he was a liar and a thief who tried to use the police and lawyers to shut down investigative journalism into his lies? That discussing his theft and lies, which had real world consequences to others, was hounding and a witch hunt?

Well said.

And still it goes on. He has only just died. He has children and parents.
Do you have no shame?

@Nameychangington
He’s dead. Is that not enough for you?

So we should be ashamed to acknowledge that he was a liar and a thief because he's died? Do everyones wrongs get cancelled when they die? We are and should be able to talk about people as they were, not pretend they didn't do wrong or weren't responsible for their own behaviour. We can agree someone's death si a waste and a tragedy without pretending they were a saint.

@Nameychangington
Would you just stop.

I wasn’t on the side of a dead man. I just never understood the mass hysteria over a “case of man lies on CV snd also exaggerates personal achievements”.

I get why Cambridge would could care. Or his students. Even his friends. But the 1000s of randoms whipping themselves into a frenzy over a professor at a university. Never made the slightest jot of sense to me and still does not.

Wow so you’re lead investigator, court and jury too. Do you have no shame?

Did he read them?

Come on, his world crashed down when he was exposed as a fraud, and the enormity of his predicament, not helped by him publishing a book and not pulling it weeks ago, became apparent.
No one would have ever heard of him had he not chased adulation and been promoted way, way beyond his station.

Am I in any way glad, or emotional about his death? No. Perhaps the people who put him
in his tower should be though?

i hope there is a thorough investigation how his death came about, though I doubt this thread will get a mention.

From my perspective it's similar to the case of Belle Gibson, who is an influencer who had 'cured her cancer' by 'clean eating and alternative medicine'. She launched an app called 'The Whole Pantry' and there was a companion book with the same title. Large portions of the proceeds would go to charity. Except that she never had cancer to cure and the donations were never made. The impact is huge. People supported her, people were inspired by her. Some people felt that they hadn't tried hard enough to cure their own cancer.

Rachel Dolezal is another example of where people were inspired by a false story.

The lying on a CV is damaging, but the damage to the world of Autism is so much worse.

Surely you've met "The Incredible Bull Shitting Man" in the pub. They say something that isn't true. They know its a lie and everyone else knows its a lie but they say it with conviction.

My story of this is Tilly and the horse. True story. Short version:

Barry Tilly(RIP) was in the pub one lunchtime and when ridiculed for a horse he was going to bet on, announced he used to be a jockey. Now there were people in the pub that went to school with him. Were working in the place he started his first job...and no one remember him ever even riding a donkey on the beach...but he was adamant. He could ride any horse anywhere. So my old man said that my uncle Colin had a horse that no one could ride and dad would bring it down the pub on Friday night..still Barry claimed he could ride any horse.

The old man brought in a hobby horse and Barry did indeed ride it round the pub.

Sound like someone you've met

Putting the unfortunate outcome aside, I'm amazed by the number of people I've recently heard say, 'It's OK to lie' and stuff like, 'Everyone lies on their CV and LinkedIn,' which made me instantly think of Rachel Reeves and Katie's Price's husband and his total fantasy life.

When does a lie become a con? When there is a financial advantage?

It was Cambridge university that pushed him to tell what was obviously greatly exaggerated achievements. An idiot could poke holes in the things Jason said but he had ASD and I know from my own experience we can be fanciful sometimes so why on earth did no one pushing him into this position sit with him and go through things and explain that he needed to tone things down.

Instead the left wing organizations all too happy to point score on Jason's vulnerability and race were quick to wash their hands the second things got spicy and had the gaul to call Racism to deflect blame That's not to excuse the right wing rags and their awful hounding of poor Jason but he wouldn't have been in that position if the people pushing him hadn't handed them the perfect excuse!

I'm deeply upset with all involved from the media to Cambridge and the other organisations who saw Jason not as a person but as a tool in their ridiculous culture wars.

Let's remember regardless of his fault at the bottom of this was a person a Human Being who is now no longer with us and this could have easily been prevented. There needs to be extreme scrutiny into this especially those who pushed Jason forward and abandoned him.

His death came about because he was hounded by the Media, and a load of pound shop Miss Marples.
You can try and kid yourself that it’s about “Cambridge” and “he brought it in himself” but that’s not the case.
How many other cases of suspected plagiarism (and let’s not forget that Liverpool investigated the claims and found nothing wrong), have you and others got worked up about? How many other University scandals are you investigating at the moment?
He was clearly a vulnerable man .. with a diagnosed disabilty, who made some mistakes. TBH who did it actually affect if he claimed to run marathons?
Lots of organisations, and individuals, who worked with him gave come out to say what a great and inspirational person he was, he seems to have done very little harm.

No idea why the on-line harassment mob are so reticent to own their handiwork, why not sit back and admire it - mob mentality got what it wanted.

Oh the thread is back. Good. I can hide it now.

But who put him there and handed that media the tools to hound him! Surely they have to take some responsibility too as much as the media.

This man’s lies were not harmless. Hundreds of students paid tens of thousands of pounds to be taught by an expert but were presented with a fraud. His ideologically driven views were lapped up by mainstream media including the BBC based on nothing but lies. His role propagated those lies into educational doctrine that gets pushed into schools.

Of course it is sad when anyone kills themself but we must not allow this to conveniently enable his crimes and the protections DEI gives others in academia to go unexamined. Or what is being pushed by other academics into education.

Don’t pretend it was ‘just a bit of plagerism on his PhD’. That is a bit like saying Jeffrey Epstein just liked parties and was clearly a vulnerable man.

I hope my fellow Black people are learning from this. A lot of people are delusional and seem to think the UK isn't a racist country, this whole scandal proves the opposite.
What Arday did was wrong and he deserved to lose his job. However, the way the media and a lot of White people on social media targeted him and dragged this story on was absolutely ridiculous! You would think he was a serial killer and students died at his hands the way the media and public were going on.

When you are a person of colour in the UK and you do wrong, you will really know you are Black and different to White people. If Arday was White, the story would never have made front page news.
No wonder Meghan got the hell out of the UK.

Never heard of Belle Gibson. So clearly not much of media frenzy about her.

It’s bloody ridiculous and I am horrified. People disgust me, this man has been hounded to death.

well said

There have been documentaries about her and a Netflix drama, so I think that counts as media attention.

This reminds me of something Gary Younge posted on X yesterday evening- "When people talk about the need for Black Excellence I counter with an insistence on Black mediocrity: the right for black people to be as average, flawed, compromised & mistaken as any other group of people. The right, ultimately, to be human."

RIP Jason Arday.