To compare and contrast coverage and outcome of the Jason Arday scandal with that of Cambridge plagiarist William O'Reilly

[OneArtfulUmberSquid]

Partly due to being an academic, the slow news season and the sensationalism, like many people I've been following the Jason Arday story and have been appalled by the scale of the fabulation and the abysmal lack of due diligence by Cambridge when they appointed him - I've also been appalled by how he was presented by the University when he was hired in terms of the emphasis on his back story and what he represented rather than his scholarship.

It's interesting to compare/contrast with the case of William O'Reilly - who was caught plagiarising his own undergrad students' essays and was then found to have plagiarised other scholars' work a number of times before...see https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/27433

He also threatened to sue student journalists for exposing him - not as bad as Arday calling the police, but still pretty risible
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/26105

A further issue relates to his witness for the accused in a rape case despite being involved in the investigation.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2020/feb/22/cambridge-university-sexual-misconduct-cases
https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/18747

I'd be interested to know what anyone else thinks of the two cases in terms of academic misconduct and outcomes, particularly anyone who works in Cambridge. O'Reilly claimed that the scrutinising of his work was due to homophobia.

More here but behind a paywall
https://www.ft.com/content/ae7f16ae-95ab-4aae-a676-0748e3e61b6d?shareType=nongift&syn-25a6b1a6=1

Sure, but why shouldn't we? Is there some sort of moral duty incumbent on us to dutifully read through every account of sexual misconduct before we can get to the skateboarding dog story?

I think part of the Arday fascination is a pile-on about DEI, but also maybe due to so many people's interest in true crime/detective stories...perhaps forgetting there's a vulnerable human at the centre, the gleefulness of finding out the lies and truth was just because the story was enthralling.

Ha, definitely not! But I do wonder if we - collectively - were less easily distracted whether we might have a bit less sexual misconduct and various other shitty things.

what sort of ND? A couple of my autistic students do sound a little like AI - formulaic, relatively flat affect.

It’s a good point. And now there is no more ‘new’ developments it’s fair game to pick over the bones. I hate true crime, maybe my repulsion at this comes from the same place.

Yes, I just realised it today - wondering why people were still going, still arguing. Some of it seems to come from a crude 'our hallowed institutions are infected with wokeness' perspective which says something about how people misguidedly think Oxford and Cambridge are unassailable bastions of thoroughness and English decency (like the Spitfires or Battle of Britain version of universities?), but maybe it's also just because it's a good story and people are intrigued by mysteries.

I think it's because of all the sexual misconduct and various other shitty things that we are ever more drawn to the skateboarding dog.

@Switchnow Of course some people are never out of the papers re sexual misconduct but that has degrees of seriousness and we cannot possibly read about all of them. Neither should we seek to compare activities which are not the same “ crime”. That game is never ending.

This story was also promoted heavily - the Times had paid for ads about it, there was huge huge huge coverage and that in itself whipped up interest

Probably yes, and not unreasonable. But a man unravelling isn’t a skateboarding dog. I think we should be able to be more serious.

@MeetMeOnTheCorner I’m not suggesting we read about all of them, rather that we have a more recognised standard that those transgressions are treated more rigorously than they are. I actually never want to read about them, I want to simply be confident that they result in someone being sanctioned appropriately.

Earlier on radio 5, this subject came up yet again with another earnest assertion from a guest that this furore is ALL about race. The interviewer, the lightweight non journalist and ex athlete Jeanette Kwakye, never asked one question about the lies and issues that have mattered to many surrounding this case. She just concentrated on the race aspect which is a very narrow perspective and not the reason for the story or press interest. I rather think that if this professorship had gone to a stunning young woman, and she was found to be equally as false, there would have been a similar outbreak of press interest. Let’s thank God it wasn’t Mary Beard (joke!!!)

Man who tells whoppers so big they can be seen from space fools Cambridge elite is a bit of a skateboarding dog, tbf.

There were several aspects to it that kept it going and going. If it had been a boring story about some guy copying his thesis, it would have been over with in a day.

Discussion about wtf Cambridge were thinking formed the basis of a lot of articles, but also his memoir being published with a bunch of new lies to rake over was incredibly bad timing.

Yes, I just realised it today - wondering why people were still going, still arguing. That is interesting from someone posting today.

I don't think the general interest was racism - it was the sheer audacity (and I've seen plenty of reports where the tale from his autobiography is shown alongside the pictures of reality.

That doesn't mean there is no racism, but any Walter Mitty story is interesting because it is so far removed from normality.

It is dreadful that sexual assault is so common that it becomes nothing more than a byline, but much like road accidents only the extreme make headlines. (My gorgeous, funny, kind best friend was killed in a RTA, and it only made a small paragraph on the local online news)

But we can not fear reporting news items, a world where the press is gagged is less safe for everyone.
A pp explained why we can not make suicide the route to redemption.

I'm surprised by the numbers claiming there is a very obvious race element in the coverage. I think Jason became a pawn in a classist scandal. The vitriol (yes, perhaps prejudice) appears to be aimed largely at the 'lofty academics' who employed him.

I am surprised by the number of posters claiming that plagiarism is rife in academia. I left after finishing my PhD before the turn of the century but that wasn't my experience at all. There were certainly some dodgy academics but their bad practice usually involved either marrying their graduate students or inserting themselves as lead author on papers written by others in their teams. I never once heard about a single case of plagiarism.

Is there any evidence of this tidal wave of plagiarism? Or is it just anecdotal?

In my opinion, and I dont work in academia, your statement about "woke" universities is in fact the case. The most woke, most out of touch people i know in real life work in universities. It sounds like you do as well OP?

Im not saying this to have a go at you OP, it genuinely is the case within my friend group. In this polarised politics we now inhabit it makes sense that there will be a echo chamber in some workspaces and I think that is the case within uni's and especially sociology depts.

As a counter narrative I'd highly recommend the first 20 mins of this Spectator podcast:

IME the targets were:

1. Cambridge for neglect re loon lies
2. Woke erosion of standards, grumble
3. zealotry of dei leading to crazy mess
4. anyone who threatened the press
5. JA for fantasies that should have been nipped in bud.
6. academics as daft poshos
7. sociology as rubbish subject
8. expense of getting a degree

No editorial went for JA himself. Some SM did. Pretty much all the MSM questions were reserved for Cambridge and they did include how to run DEI and how to treat race a bit less disastrously.

It was not so much that Cambridge was a bastion of English decency - you imagine that it’s run by an intellectual elite, who aren’t renowned for decency, but no it’s run by lucky people who know how to tick the DEI boxes, plus it has an 800 year history whose reputation you would think would be the most vital thing they must preserve, as that increases the numbers of people hoping to get a place as they pay fees, plus alumni and donators, but no that can be chucked under the bus too - unbelievable

@DallasMajor We cannot have every newspaper inch taken up with traffic accidents and men behaving badly. I do think both are covered and not all victims want to read this stuff either. The press does have notable campaigns to try and bring our attention to where laws should be changed or prison sentences changed - the inclusion of manslaughter and the early release scheme being a recent example. Maybe we need a campaign for fair recruitment practises?

In terms of UK universities - which I'm very familiar with - the biggest issue is massive job losses (4000 in the past year).

In terms of any DEI element in JA's appointment, what I found dismaying is that it seemed so superficial, and as if he was treated almost as a mascot. The press release after he was appointed suggested as such and communicated a pat on the back for Cambridge rather than a focus on his academic work. This did the institution and Arday himself no favours.

I do think there is a lot of lip service paid to diversity and equality - from the curriculum to how appointments are handled - but it often remains pretty superficial, for example through one stellar (if dodgy) appointment.

I don't find the examples Lara Brown cites particularly eye-opening. The Lego Professor is funded by the wealthy Lego foundation and is working on child development - hardly worthless. The LSE first year course is tackling pretty significant topics, and I think the interdisciplinary basis is worthwhile. I don't take Toby Young's views on education seriously (as an aside - he himself was a dodgy appointment by Boris Johnson to the Office for Students and had to resign) nor Lara Brown's as I find her work disingenuous with the facts and as ideologically charged as those she describes as such.

When I worked at a UK university 15 years ago 90% of senior academics were white men, and usually from pretty privileged backgrounds.

I heard/saw some reports from the vigil for JA tonight from those who knew him and he helped and it sounds like he will be remembered by them as a very gentle and supportive person. I think I'm going to step away from commenting any more, I feel a bit ashamed or sullied by engaging so much with this whole episode. Whatever harm he did ultimately damaged him more than anyone else, and I hope his soul rests in peace now, and those who loved him will be comforted by happy memories and not the awfulness of the past couple of years.

I agree @MeetMeOnTheCorner but this story got column inches because it was different.

What is scary is the amount of AI pictures currently circulating on SM showing JA doing the things he claimed, made by people looking for clicks and are obviously fake, but lots of people not realising.

One of the reasons this story continues to run is that Cambridge continue to be in denial about how incompetent and discriminatory Arday's appointment was. I've seen it reported online that other candidates interviewed for the professorial chair (a very high ranking type of professor, best you can get) included 2 better qualified women of colour. I don't know if that's true, but if so Cambridge deliberately discriminated against those better qualified candidates - which looks like sexism to me. It's also important to reiterate that positive discrimination is illegal in the UK. Appointing someone because they are black and claim to be disabled instead of a much better qualified alternative candidate is illegal discrimination.

Arday himself told the lies, applied for jobs he wasn't qualified for & told more lies. At this point I would assume anything he claimed was a lie or gross exaggeration unless proven otherwise. Cambridge need to have a very open investigation into his appointment and their entire sociology dept - the standard of Arday's work is frankly junk. If interviewing half a dozen people and publishing anecdotes is world leading sociology (as per Cambridge's description of Arday) then we should bin the whole subject.

To be honest I don't see where racism comes into it - Arday was a conartist who got found out. He earned a lot of money (a professor states on about £60K) and got a lot of media attention for his lies, then he got found out.

@EricTheHalfASleeve ’To be honest I don't see where racism comes into it’

Tell that to Diane Abbott and the 30,000 people who held a vigil organized by Stand up to Racism yesterday.

They have already decided it was racism, nothing will change their mind.

Recruitment doesn’t generally work like that though otherwise there would be no need for interviews or interview panels. I got a job where they told me afterwards I had beaten more experienced candidates. I’ve also given jobs to people who are on paper less experienced than others but they stormed the interview. Sometimes people who look great on paper stuff up the interview and don’t demonstrate their experience well enough. It doesn’t mean you are discriminating against them if you have followed a robust interview process. I’ve no idea what has happened at Cambridge I wasn’t there, but what you have said about recruitment isn’t correct.

Yes, the coverage coming out now, especially on BBC and LBC radio is doubling down on the racism aspect and reaffirming JA's status as a victim.