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

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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

And were they promoting their incredible life and publishing memoirs before middle age about their incredible life triumphing over racism, ND, health challenges and violent attacks?

No.

This isn't really about plagiarism. Which is why he's been treated differently.

Quite. It's a thing and it needs to be outed once and for all.

It is truly sad that Arday chose to end his life after his house of cards came tumbling down.

However, let’s not lose sight of the facts amidst the emotion.

He did plagiarise his PhD.
His academic work was full of errors.
He lied on his CV about past academic posts.
He lied in numerous interviews, talks, lectures and articles about his achievements to present himself as remarkable (the marathons competed in a certain number of days, raising £5 million for charity, etc).
He claimed a level of racial harassment and violence that was not supported by police records.

All of this is true. Factually, he was a fantasist and a fraud. That doesn’t make him a bad person, but it does make him a dishonest one.

There are also now questions as to whether his claims about the severity of his learning needs and neurodiversity are true.

He was an academic with a public profile not because of his work, but because of his life story and the achievements he claimed to have made despite his learning disabilities. That package is what elevated this story beyond the local setting to the national news. This was far beyond a plagiarism issue.

He wasn’t just promoted as being remarkable because he was Black. Actually, more than anything, the focus was on him essentially ‘overcoming’ autism to achieve at a remarkable level despite all the odds being against him.

Jason Arday actively promoted himself and his life story in a sustained manner over several years. This predated any employment in a university setting - he was a torch bearer in the 2012 Olympics based on his charity fundraising achievements - he didn’t get his PhD until 2015.

Cambridge has questions to answer and certainly utilised Arday for their own agenda. I’m not denying race has a role to play in the situation and its very public fallout. However, presenting Arday as some sort of unwitting victim of racism is utter nonsense. He chose to put himself in the public eye. Cambridge only hired him because of the package he presented to them - and he very much chose to create and promote that package, despite knowing it was a pack of lies.

Let’s not forget his autobiography was out this week - this is someone who sought fame and attention and when that was no longer the positive and affirmative attention he desired, he decided he could not cope with the alternative. That is no one’s fault, sadly, but his own.

Someone choosing to end their life is an awful thing and I feel for his family. However, this situation is far more complex than ‘racist media hounds man to his death’ and trying to pretend it is obscures the reality that Arday was already a very damaged and delusional individual for whom reality was a fiction.

Fantastic post. What I find most alarming about this is its damage to education. If a person can be promoted beyond their means, without due merit, what message is this sending out to learners? The whole purpose of reading for a degree is to not only form a career but to become an all rounder of knowledge; a specialist in one's field. That takes dedication and bloody hard work, as those of us, who've have been through it bear the scars.

I spent most of my adult working life in academia. I’ve been in a number of situations where I tried to advocate For students in the face of appalling teaching and misinformation which significantly altered their grades.

Put simply - you cannot challenge the academic judgement of someone in an academic position - it simply isn’t done, you can only Challenge whether the correct process was followed.

This is the key area for me and I think it’s why a lot of people are so invested - because many people are parents and have children at university or have been through the university system - at some financial and personal cost.

His fraud had real world impact on students some of whom might not have been able to pursue a chosen career, Due to low grades, because of his poor teaching.

This is where the focus needs to be. universities have to be diligent in providing academics who can do the job they are employed to do - and do it well. His death should not derailed that focus.

Strongly agree. It is a tragedy that he is dead and I am so sorry for his family. But the fact remains he was responsible for his own plagiarism and fantastical lies claims, and those who enabled and used him as a prop for wider agendas also carry blame. It is incredible it was allowed to go on unchecked for so long - from Cambridge’s lack of due diligence, to his publisher’s non-existent fact checking. There is an excellent podcast episode by Blocked and Reported that goes through the responses from both Cambridge and other universities Jason was engaged with, before this became so public, and shows how long it they had known about these accusations and not acted. (And also expansive claims Jason included in his book proposal to his publisher, which spanned claims he’d been in a coma with locked-in syndrome; had testicular cancer, and much more.)

You mean him being non verbal till he was 12, couldn't walk till he was 18 and then did 100 marathons in about a week?
Christ on a bike whens his canonisation ceremony coming?

If he’d played it like that, I think it could have gone that way.

He could have said “they kept offering me these things so I kept accepting!” (Or even “so who’s the idiot here?”).

If he’d done that I think a lot of people would have laughed along with him. He’s pretty charming and likeable in person by all accounts.

Instead he hired lawyers to shut down enquiries, smeared journalists and students as racists, and made up stories of enemies leaving pigs heads at his door to paint others as monsters. I think from that point he wasn’t going to get away as a lovable rogue.

Hear hear.

I do think there was a significant degree of racism in the joyful pursuit of Arday, However - Arday was a professor, O'Reilly is just a lecturer. I think that's a pretty big difference. And while more might come out about O'Reilly if he was scrutinised in the way Arday was, Arday's "sins" weren't simply plagiarism. He appears ot have committed fraud in applying for positions.

I do think the dismissal of the plagiarism claims in both cases (Ardays' PhD investigation and O'Reilly's Cambridge ones) point to a depressingly low standard in academia, though. I would be absolutely frothing if I were one of the students O'Reilly had ripped off.

I saw a comment on social media where the poster said ‘probably the best thing he could do at this stage is come out and claim this has all been performative theater.’

Can you be more specific about narrowing the person specifications so only a certain demographic can apply? I don’t really understand what that would look like in practice and genuinely interested in what you mean?

True. Media is run by rich powerful white men who dont want ' upstart' people of colour encroaching on rheir space. It's as simple as that. And I say that as a white person who is sick of this nonsense. Holding back talent ultimately impoverishes the whole of society..White people should stand in solidarity with POC to reject this utter utter shitshow racist bollocks.

It’s true that everyone is at it. I was an academic and a senior professor published false data. The data was generated by his research assistant who in recent years has done a ted talk. It was discovered when they couldn’t replicate the data later on and was hushed up. At another university a colleague complained privately to me that a prof had pinched her work. It’s the norm but if you stick ur head over the parapet or are black or female you are more likely to be scrutinised. In the 90s for a phd it was known that the order of finishing your phd was white men, black men, white women, black women.

Please tell me this is parody.

It’s too soon. He only passed yesterday.

It’s simple, as any journalist will tell you - this is an incredible story. The fantastical elements of this (from the pig’s head, to the fundraising and marathon claims, to the plagiarism) makes it news worthy. It is not his academic fraud by itself. It is the web of bizarre claims he wove about himself that makes it a compelling story. I am not saying outlets like the Daily Mail might not give this oversized attention, but I promise you - even if this had run first in a tiny local paper, it would get national news pick-up because the story is so ridiculous.

Nonverbal in an English mainstream primary school then couldn't read or write in a mainstream secondary school but got 2 GCSEs before learning to read and write at 18. I heard a quote from his book where he says teachers in this mainstream English secondary school in the 90s would hit him with a pen on his knuckles when he couldn't write.

Was also apparently according to people reviewing his memoir so violently beaten in a racist attack that he developed epilepsy but then coincidentally ended up teaching his attackers in later life, becoming friends and a Godfather to their DC as they were so won over by his incredible forgiving nature and triumph over adversity.

The mid-80s?! So significantly prior to the equality act 2010?

I’m very sorry that Mr Arday has died- I think we are all assuming it is suicide. It’s a tragedy for his family.

However, I think there is a danger of him being retrospectively canoninised, so to speak, because of his death.

I think part of the difference between this case and that of other professors is that most of the other professors were fairly obscure. Arday was publicly feted by Cambridge University (for their own benefit, largely), he appeared on TV quite regularly and also sought his own publicity by writing an autobiography. This is a man who was, relatively speaking for an academic, quite well known. A controversy involving him was always going to attract more attention than the average. I think the nature of his apparent untruths/exaggeration/outright fantasies was so obvious and fantastical that it was risible, and very confusing that it had been left unquestioned until then. This attracted even more attention because it was so ridiculous,

I agree that there was an element of racism in this furore. However, I think it was far more than that. It was clear that there is an ongoing question of plagiarism (I strongly suspect that this will not be upheld- who is going to accuse a dead man of this, given the furore over the media involvement?). There is also the issue around previous students stating he was not a particularly great lecturer and when they raised concerns, they were labelled as racist. It seems that the racism card gets played every time a concern is raised.

Add in the use of police to intimidate anyone looking into it- including a Times journalist investigating allegations- an attempt at using the law inappropriately. Even the Metropolitan Police have had to admit wrongdoing in relation to this case. I think the issue is both racism, and others so clearly trying to trip over themselves to be seen to not being racist has led us to the worst of both worlds.

There is the absolutely staggering fabulation, the very clear lies about his career and so on- I find it staggering that these claims had never been openly questioned before- I can only assume that others did not want to put their head above the parapet to question Cambridge’s DEI poster-boy. I also think that he was quite happy to be feted publicly and he wrote a book about his life- I don’t think he could easily hide behind anonymity. Nor should he- you can’t put yourself into the public eye only when it suits. I do think the scrutiny he was subject to would have been very difficult to cope with, so I’m not saying it did not go overboard- merely that if you court publicity, there is always a danger in it.

i don’t think Cambridge university comes out well from all this- it would seem that they did not perform due diligence, ignored student concerns etc- and put a potentially vulnerable employee into the limelight without due care. I think they were either taken in, or were happy to ignore any concerns, because it met the political DEI agenda. Which is not the action of a responsible organisation. They have questions to answer too.

I suspect that what will happen now is that the media, Cambridge etc will all be scrutinised heavily (rightly so) and any wrongdoing by Arday will be glossed over due to his tragic death. Which I think would be unhelpful in how we sensibly move forward to prevent something like this happen again- and that’s more likely if we don’t identify all the issues.

I AM a POC and when my DC goes to university I want her to be taught by someone who actually knows something. Plenty of people of colour earned every single thing they got with intelligence and integrity, it’s an insult to the rest of us to hold this man up as some sort of victim, he was a fantasist encouraged in the most patronising way by white people thinking they were doing a GOOD THING.

I’d forgotten about the mugging story. His attackers had turned their lives around because they were so moved by his testimony in court, where he pleaded that they not be jailed.

Ooooo the secret world of black TV comedy......I'm so scared😂🤣

Well said. There's two outcomes I can see from this. One, JA being awarded a posthumous honour and two, his family sueing the establishment.

i agree with this- more succinctly out then I did!