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

You cited the article that said his h-index was roughly comparable with academics at a similar stage in their experience. That's the point I was making: his h-index should have been compared to the other candidates shortlisted for this post. It was a post that is not given to early career academics (which he most definitely was), but is reserved for academics with a mountain of trail-blazing publications and research (which he most definitely was not). He also definitely had not supervised even one successful PhD candidate: such a professorial role assumes 5+. Putting aside the amount of plagiarised text in his thesis and/or articles, I do not accept that he was as qualified as any other candidate for this role.

No, not to include his other work - the plagiarism score of 4.2% only measured how similar his work was to that 2019 thesis he was accused of copying.

The article that you linked to said “The level of “plagiarism” found in Arday’s Doctoral thesis is 4.2% — a naive reader may expect this to be zero but a colleague would certainly not. Some level of unoriginality in a doctoral thesis is quite standard.”

Except that’s not true.

I have found a blogpost where someone put the same thesis through Turnitin where it wasn’t just restricted to a comparison with the 2019 thesis and it found the “level of plagiarism” was 24% which is obviously very different.

I don’t know anything about using Turnitin or plagiarism but the blog post says:

”The large blocks of verbatim copying we see in Arday’s thesis are not normal. Nobody in academia would consider this normal, despite the conclusion of Cambridge and Liverpool John Moore’s that this is not academic misconduct. I am posting this because I think it is helpful for people to be able to see clearly why lots of academics are freaked out by the denial of issues here. A Turnitin report that looks like this rings every single alarm bell for people used to looking at them. Arday has argued that “if anyone’s academic work had been subjected to as much scrutiny it would show similar errors.” This is simply untrue. The report linked below is genuinely unusual.”

https://batheticfallacy.substack.com/p/jason-ardays-phd-turnitin-report

Ok.

By the way I am not making a stand on defending him - I've said that as his PhD was found to have lacked citations it should have been resubmitted - I'm going on the conclusions of the investigation by the original university.

I'm familiar with turnitin and used it for a few years - my university cancelled their subscription as there were so many issues with 'false flags' and the view was that it was too simplistic. For example, some of our students may have quoted from texts they were analysing and then the turnitin would produce a high score. Also, as AI has become a bigger and bigger issue turnitin doesn't detect its use very well.

So in terms of the blog post you mention and then the article I linked to they're using different software and coming to different conclusions, and I wouldn't champion one or the other - the article was one of the first I saw to take a different approach so I was putting it into the mix.

In general, there was an investigation that came to a conclusion - and I think as an internal HR/academic standards matter that should be more or less enough (although with the resubmission as I mentioned). Given that's my view, I do think threads on here headed 'Jason Arday Plagiarist' are jumping the gun a bit and the idea that Cofnas was 'just' a whistleblower about academic standards is disingenuous - but that's a bit off topic. O'Reilly was definitively found 'guilty' of plagiarism, and of his own students but...RTFT!

So in terms of the blog post you mention and then the article I linked to they're using different software and coming to different conclusions, and I wouldn't champion one or the other @OneArtfulUmberSquid

They’re not simply using different software and coming to different conclusions, the one you linked to is definitely making a faulty argument.

The article you linked to only compared Arday’s thesis to the Paula ZM 2009 thesis and said it matched 4.2% (see pic)

Then for their comparator they said “Some level of unoriginality in a doctoral thesis is quite standard. The most directly comparable work to be used as benchmark is a series by David Ison using Turnitin on samples from ProQuest Dissertations & Theses. Ison (2014) scored 368 dissertations published 2009–2013, 184 from online and 184 from brick-and-mortar institutions, with quotations, bibliographies and definitions excluded:”

I’ve attached the image below that shows the median from this search is 12%

The blog author then compares that 12% to Arday’s 4.2% and concludes “So almost 1 in 2 doctoral theses contain a level of plagiarism higher than that found in Arday’s work. ”

But this is bollocks.
As you can see from what I posted above, with Arday’s thesis put through Turnitin, his score was 24%. I don’t think that was with quotations removed, which would bring it down a bit, but not to 4.2% so still the blog post conclusion is completely invalid.

How the author could restrict Arday’s comparison to one paper and then compare it to dissertations being compared against all papers and think this a fair comparison is beyond me. But clearly it has some fooled.

Based on this egregious use of statistics, I’d not be included to trust anything else in that blog either.

Ok, thanks.
As I said, the original PhD had been investigated and the awarding institution stood over its conclusions and the award, possibly as the plagiarised sections were reportedly in the literature review which tends to be more part of the apparatus of a thesis than the main substance of it.

So - while I think LMJU should have gone further in terms of a resubmission as this suggests low standards for their doctoral awards but according to their judgement and presumably to the satisfaction of Cambridge, the plagiarism was not significant enough to withdraw the PhD, the charge of plagiarism was not upheld, and tagging JA as 'plagiarist' is a bit much in my opinion.

As I said, the original PhD had been investigated and the awarding institution stood over its conclusions and the award

Yes, but one could well imagine that an awarding institution, when being told by Arday that the copied passages were down to his autism, disadvantaged background and poor supervision by the university who hadn’t told him that copying wasn’t allowed, could consider that the options were either

1. allowing the PhD to stand, or
2. opening themselves up to a lawsuit if they tried to rescind it.

So I think independent scrutiny is more valuable than the university stamp of validity tbh.

You don't need to put Arday's thesis through any software to highlight his plagiarism. When you see a side by side comparison the copying is obvious to any casual observer. Here are a several images from Cofnas' original Substack article.

https://substack.com/@nathancofnas/p-207415162

I’ve seen cases like this irl and the typical approach would be ask for corrections and resubmit. It’s simple, whatever you imagine Arday said. Also, Cambridge oversaw that investigation I think so they’d have had to be satisfied with the outcome

No they didn’t.

https://www.cam.ac.uk/notices/news/statement-to-media-02-august-2026

Cambridge wasn't the university that investigated these claims or reviewed JA's PhD thesis. In a statement they put out, the university said: "Allegations of plagiarism regarding Professor Arday's thesis and some of his journal publications have been investigated by Liverpool John Moores University and the journals in question."
So it is as the PP said, LJM checking their own homework and being faced with either a lawsuit or admitting they have extremely lax standards for higher degrees.

This article by Hugh Muir in the Guardian is interesting and sad to read (while being not unexpected), about ‘the media’’s contribution to this awful mess,(because of course the media is not just one blob writing in the same way). And specifically he covers the experience that doing this reporting has created for black journalists working on the story.

‘A rightwing witch-hunt focused on Jason Arday – but so did legitimate journalism’
Comment is Free

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/aug/19/rightwing-witch-hunt-jason-arday-legitimate-journalism

@SaucerandCup I think that’s not entirely fair. The left wing hound people too and the Guardian turns a blind eye. The media covers all sorts of output. The book reviews really ramped this up and his claims were seen as ludicrous. If people tell the truth and have the academics to back it up, there’s nothing to see! As other black professors have proved.

'Nothing to see' implies stuff just happens and is either newsworthy or not.

The Arday case had people with an axe to grind all over it from the start - all held particular ideologies dear, and seem to have been disaffected about issues of race, and DEI.

The retired academic David Harris initiated the original enquiry into the PhD and a 2018 journal article by Arday. Once Professor Emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University, his status was revoked due to his promulgation of race science and harshly voiced take on DEI. He wrote to Arday twice, who asked him to cease and desist or it would be considered harassment. He persisted, which is when Arday reported him to police (foolishly to some minds).

Harris then enlisted the help of Martyn Hammersley, Professor Emeritus of Educational and Social Research at the Open University. He had also condemned DEI and what he thought of as an 'activist' strand in contemporary academic work.

Harris also contacted Jack Grove from Times Higher Education and later supplied material to him - he compiled a big dossier on Arday including his 'back story' claims.

Hammersley wrote to Hilary Cremin, Head of Cambridge’s Faculty of Education, and Rhys Morgan, the university’s Head of Research Policy, Governance and Integrity about the 2018 article. They said Arday had their support and that as the work predated his appointment in Cambridge it wasn't in their purview. Harris and Hammersley then contacted academic journals and Liverpool John Moores University to investigate Arday's publications and PhD.

LJMU investigated the PhD - said some of the lit review was inadequately cited, although questioned how deliberate it was seeing as Arday cited the same scholar elsewhere in the thesis. 2 of Ardays 33 peer-reviewed papers were deemed as concerning and were corrected.

That could have been the end of it - Arday had been investigated, and issued corrections/exonerated. His academic misdemeanours were not outrageously unusual - just see retraction watch, O'Reilly and 9 other Cambridge academics found 'guilty' of plagiarism etc. However, the dramatic back story and the axe to grind crew meant it wouldn't go away - as we know, the big media frenzy started with Cofnas's blog post on 21 July and was amplified by anti-DEI organisations such as Academics for Academic Freedom (AFAF) and the Committee for Academic Freedom (CAF).

So none of these people/agencies were neutral truth-tellers. It was absolutely to do with race from the start - from Cambridge's publicity of the appointment, Arday's research focus and then the actions of the various agents who instigated, amplified and persisted throughout the whole case.

@OneArtfulUmberSquid Yes because the appointment was probably not justified and Cambridge courted publicity. A standard professorial appointment has virtually no publicity! They wanted to show this allotment met their tick box attitude to “needing” this appointment and chose someone who was not good enough due to flawed recruitment policies - in my view. It should never have happened but Arday and Cambridge both contributed to the publicity and they could both have not done so.

Where are you quoting your post from - it’s selective - there are examples of plagiarism and why threaten with legal letters -why not put your ‘unplagiarised ’ thesis out there and the evidence that all your other claims are true -shutting people down with threats of expensive legal action point to the fact there is something to hide

@Corianda Yes. That’s exactly the problem. There was something to see! A standard appointment would never have needed any of the threats and would have been watertight and not announced with a blaze of publicity. You reap what you sow and the right wing press didn’t sow it.

I am not quoting from anywhere - I wrote it.

there are examples of plagiarism
I didn't say there wasn't

why threaten with legal letters
Arday clearly felt he was being harassed after he asked someone to stop contacting him and they persisted in doing so. I never said it was good to threaten legal action.

why not put your ‘unplagiarised ’ thesis out there
???
Me? My unplagiarised thesis is available. Arday? His thesis is also available and the plagiarism was investigated and he was cleared.

I did say on my post (and numerous times) that the announcement was not good for anyone. I agree with what Jason Okundaye in the Guardian said - that Cambridge treated* *Arday 'not as a scholar but as a mascot' and that he was used to signal certain institutional credentials.

That doesn't mean there weren't people keen to use the appointment and the ensuing publicity to attack DEI/platform racist ideas/hound Arday. I in no way believe that his academic misdemeanours warranted the level of hostility he faced - but the strange back story was certainly an opportunity to amplify and make much more of them than would typically be the case.

Without being part of the appointment process it's impossible to say anything definitive about it.

That doesn't mean there weren't people keen to use the appointment and the ensuing publicity to attack DEI/platform racist ideas/hound Arday. I

Well DEI is exactly why he got the role - so Kemen /Cambridge could tick all the DEI boxes. So obviously DEI gets attacked.

If his plagiarism was examined and cleared all the more reason to put it out - not to shut things down with a legal threat

@OneArtfulUmberSquid Do we know the back stories of other standard professors? I bet we don’t because they are standard back stories. Arday’s contained a huge amount of fantasy and it drew attention to him. Not only that, he’d got a book about him that amplified it. Huge mistake.

Yes, the Cambridge DEI policies are certainly worth investigating. So were Arday’s claims. He also did tv appearances. Most professors don’t. If this appointment had been a standard one, only a few academic colleagues would have cared about it, but courting publicity and the manner of the appointment, and the book, alerted a much wider audience and people didn’t find him credible. It’s a terrible situation for his family but as I’ve said repeatedly, robust recruitment polices should have prevented this but DEI policies came to the fore, and it was disastrous.

Arday? His thesis is also available and the plagiarism was investigated and he was cleared.

LJMU the awarding institution cleared him but it's plain as day to even the most casual observer that there is extensive plagiarism in Arday's thesis. You don't need to run it through Turnitin. Take a look at the images & link that I posted upthread (25/08/2026 13:22)

"Arday? His thesis is also available and the plagiarism was investigated and he was cleared"

Didn't he claim that mimicry was his coping mechanism for alleged lack of support and no reasonable adjustments for his autism?

It's claimed that he only had one face to face meeting with his PhD supervisor. This may have been no great loss as the supervisor boasts of failing all his GCSEs except English then resitting after another year of school & failing them all again so it's uncertain what intellectual rigour he would add.

"It's claimed that he only had one face to face meeting with his PhD supervisor. This may have been no great loss as the supervisor boasts of failing all his GCSEs"

In which case since he would have strong grounds for appeals/ legal action etc do it was in their interests to minimise the extent of any plagiarism?

Thing is it brings into question LJM unis phds across the board -there must be many pissed off Drs about, particularly of sociology