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.