Jason Arday, Cambridge Plagiarist?

[Angeruish]

I’m surprised to be the first to mention this, but what do people think about Jason Arday, the Cambridge professor accused of plagiarism, and the media row that is brewing around him?

For those that don’t know, three years ago Arday became – at 37 – the youngest-ever black professor at Cambridge. Arday claims to have been diagnosed with autism at an early age, and says he couldn’t speak until he was eleven, and apparently only learnt how to read and write at eighteen.

The appointment, made when BLM issues were very much in the news, was made despite allegations of plagiarism in Arday’s doctorate, which were dismissed by Cambridge as being beyond its purview, and because he had been cleared by the awarding institution, Liverpool John Moores.

Those allegations have resurfaced in the past few days, with examples that certainly seem fairly damning, including a misplaced s apostrophe in the title of part of his doctoral thesis (An exploration of peer-mentoring among student teachers’ to inform reflective practice within the context of action research). This blatant error seems to have originated in a phrase supposedly lifted from the thesis he allegedly plagiarised, although in that original case it formed part of a sentence in which it was grammatically correct.

My experience of dipping at random into the paper, which is available online, immediately showed a number of other very basic spelling and other mistakes, almost as if it had not been proofread at all.

In an abstract (the summary written by the author, which is placed right at the beginning of an academic paper) from a different 2018 Arday paper, the following three grammatical/spelling errors occur within a single paragraph of just 160 words (again, this can easily be found online):
This paper employs a Critical Race Theory (CRT) a storytelling method, which operates…
powerful ways in racism unfolds within in the Academy…
dismantle inequity in all its suboardinated forms…

There are now reports that Cambridge – which insists that Arday is the victim of a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility” – is, perhaps not surprisingly, facing a “staff revolt” over the issue. Arday himself complains of “dark arts” being used against him, and says that autism led him to rely heavily on mimicry to make sense of information.

On the web you can find reports of various claims made by Arday (though several universities seem to be scaling them down, now that the spotlight is upon them). And yes, I have copied some of these:

• To have finished his PhD in 2½ years while working full-time and living with a brain tumour.
• To have featured on a television show that ran over a decade before he was born.
• To have run thirty marathons in 35 days, despite having experienced an epileptic fit, a seizure and a leg fracture. He also says he has run 600 miles in six days, just fifty miles short of the world record (no evidence of these extraordinary feats appears to exist, nor have witnesses come forward to testify to them.
• To have raised over five million pounds for charity (when challenged in recent days over this, Arday said this was done in association with others, who he declined to name because, he said, he had signed non-disclosure agreements that stopped him from doing so).
• To have played football and snooker professionally (no indication is given as to how Arday might have communicated on a football pitch when mute, as he says he was until the age of eleven).
• To have had a stroke immediately after graduating, causing him to lose his memory of working on his PhD.
• To have two GCSEs, in PE and Textiles (no timeline is given for when he is supposed to have taken these exams, but both of them would presumably have involved some writing – a skill that he apparently only acquired at age 18).
• To sleep only two hours per night.

Try searching online..... even "The Guardian" has now decided he is not everything he claims to be. So what do people think, and what does it say about higher education nowadays???

Sorry you clearly missed be accused of being my alt account and the main plank of the evidence was that you misspelled feint (ie copied my spelling). I awe that post has been removed now though so no wonder you’re confused!

Depends where you see it being reported. Some outlets have put a different spin on it.

That’s what’s so fascinating. The absolute gall. But they wear capes and robes and medals alongside genuinely deserving people. It’s baffling.

This is an excellent point and one that I used to raise all the time as a teacher. Get the diagnostic label and you’re suddenly eligible for entirely different treatment.

I just think people need to lay off him. He's the last surviving Dambuster. FFS have some respect!

😂😂

The Telegraph:

Charity casts doubts on volunteering record of Cambridge professor

WaterAid disputes claim by Prof Jason Arday, who is at centre of plagiarism row

’A charity has cast doubt on claims about volunteering made by the Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row.
Prof Jason Arday has listed among his achievements “installing water points” in South America and West Africa with the charity WaterAid.
WaterAid, however, says it never sends volunteers abroad.
It is the latest blow to Prof Arday’s credibility following questions over alleged plagiarism and apparently bogus claims he has made about ultra-distance running and fundraising.
His memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, is set to be published at the end of this month, with a publicity tour of the UK and America to promote it.
His biography on the website of his speakers’ agency, the Simon & Schuster Speakers Bureau, stated until recently: “He has also undertaken and completed relief work in South America and West Africa with WaterAid installing water points, which provide drinkable and clean water.”
The name of WaterAid has now been removed from the biography on the website, but the same claim appeared on several other biographies of Prof Arday ahead of events where he was speaking.
When The Telegraph asked WaterAid whether Prof Arday had installed water points in South America or West Africa for the charity, a spokesman referred us to its policy on volunteers, which has a section titled: “Why we don’t send volunteers abroad.”
It explains that “it’s vital that each community is responsible for managing their own projects” and that “out of respect for the people we work with, we don’t encourage or facilitate self-funded visits either”.
Meanwhile, on his biography page on the website of Jesus College, where he is a fellow, Prof Arday lists a visiting professorship at Glasgow University, where he worked as a full-time professor before his move to Cambridge.
The Herald newspaper reported that Glasgow University said Prof Arday had never held a visiting professorship there, contradicting his Jesus College biography.
Prof Arday’s claims about fundraising have gradually unravelled since allegations that he had plagiarised his PhD thesis surfaced last month.
He admitted that he did not, as previously claimed, run 600 miles in six days (he now says it took 12 days) and he has accepted that he did not personally raise £5.5m for charity, as he has said in the past he did, but that he was part of a “syndicate of 100 people” who raised the money, though he cannot name any of them as he says they all signed non-disclosure agreements.
Simon & Schuster, which is set to publish the professor’s memoir, has said that “as things stand”, publication will still go ahead on Aug 27.’

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/08/03/cambridge-professor-accused-plagiarism-loses-key-ally-uk/

I agree with this. My DD has a dispensation for SPAG in her assignments. We have no idea what because she has AuDHD, not dyslexia. We’ve not asked for it. In fact, in terms of writing/spelling and grammar, she has been writing undergraduate worth essays since she was 14. Where she needs ‘extensions’ is to avoid having to assignments due on the same day - a 3-7 day extension on ONE assignment that coincides with another on its submission date is enough.

What she needs it to see sample past assignments to show what a typical 2;2, 2;1 look like so that she can understand via critical review what is expected (they provided this as routine for my MA at Surrey, to all students, but it is not done at her uni);
what she needs it to be give one or two extra 1;2;1’s with her tutor so that she can clarify what is needed, and go through the areas she has not understood [lecturers with strong accents create a barrier to communication if you already have a communication disorder, with ASD is, so having access to a transcript during/after a lecture seminar would be helpful], take away a supplementary reading list tailored to her needs to plug the gaps that form in lectures she cannot follow because of the accents.

None of these mean she shouldn’t be at university - her critical analysis, her ability to see straight to the nub of an issue, her skill at writing an essay about it is not the issue - but she needs the equivalent of a compassionate and nurturing manager and team - one she can go to and ask for clarification of what is needed in a task, who might be able to help her chunk it down into: research, analysis, report (for example).

But the one size fits all approach to providing disability support, is a waste of resources and goodwill of those providing them.

One of the key things I had to teach my husband early on: don't give me the help YOU think I need; ASK me and let me explain the help I DO need. Give me that and I’ll love you forever.

The same principle applies in employment and academia - only ‘love’ is replaced with ‘commitment’ and/or ‘loyalty’.

This is now in The Times:

Cambridge academic loses backing over plagiarism claims

The president of Wolfson College has withdrawn her support for Jason Arday after he was accused of copying work in his PhD thesis

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/education/article/jason-arday-professor-dame-ijeoma-uchegbu-withdraws-backing-5qt3zgxn5

I am going to be potentially controversial here and say that the quality of research in education in general is really dire. That being the case, the people assessing it have to be part of the overall problem.

I guess what I would ask is, why don't other students have a cess to this kind of help?

It seems like Cambridge have fallen foul of a desire to drive a narrative where some one with learning difficulties or poor teen academic attainment can somehow rise against the odds phoenix like to become full professor at one of the most prestigious I universities in the world. What possibly could go wrong?

There is also a case of respect from the student body and fellow academics who probably do have much more higher standard rigourous qualifications.....can this in reality be achieved?

I know a professor at a modern university that makes it some sort of boast that she achieved one d at A level yet was now a politics professor and openly advocated A levels were no indication of how good an academic you could be and were just a middle class means to suppress the careers aspirations of the working class.. In reality she published little bit was heavily involved in administration and outside political campaigning including media enagagment .

One of the reasons I pulled my kids out of my convenient local primary to secondary college was that the new principal’s mantra was “Cs get degrees”.

He got the PhD while he was working as a PE lecturer at Liverpool John Moores University. He was not a poster boy at this point.

He did an education PhD. Jason's is particularly bad, but often they tend to be around this level, minus the plagorism.

It's normally people who are employed by a post 92 and realise they need a PhD to progress or look half credible. So people just go through the motions of lightly engaging in basic theory and interviewing a convenience sample. They know when they are finished, that wraps up their research for life. Jason, however, had loftier ambitions and kept the shill going.

This is really interesting - although a bit of a side issue from the main thread. I think the depth of your understanding would show through in the quality of your work, certainly in comparison to the extremely unrealistic characters in the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. It can't be the case that people can only write from direct experience though - otherwise creative writing would be incredibly limited. Sorry this is a very short and un-nuanced reply - it would make for a really interesting discussion.

Not that I'm a huge fan of anything from the Daily Mail but the clarification in this article about what Professor Arday meant when he referred to 'Seven Up' is interesting:

In response to inquiries from the Daily Mail, Professor Arday said that when he talked of 'Seven Up', he didn't mean 'Seven Up' the famous TV series, which followed children at seven-year intervals in the format he described. He said that in fact he was referring to 'a local community and parent-led initiative developed around the Ubuntu principle that 'it takes a village to raise a child'.

'It was organised by Black women to support Black mothers raising children with complex learning needs.'

He asked that we attribute the quotes to 'a source close to Professor Arday'.
'The reference to "Seven Up" was used informally as a shorthand illustration of the concept. It was not intended as a literal comparison and should be understood in the context in which it was made. Attempts to present the phrase in isolation risk creating a misleading impression of both the initiative and Professor Arday's comments,' Professor Arday said.

A BBC spokesman on Sunday confirmed Professor Arday had 'nothing to do with our films'.

Was going to answer no idea!

The support/accommodations my DD needs, tbh, are actually not that significant in a flexibe student centred system - when I was at uni for my undergrad I was able to have access to all of the things she needs as standard? Not because of diagnoses or disabilities. I had tutors that I could contact and arrange appointments with as needed, I could speak to them if I was doing 2 or 3 modules and the assignments deadlines coincided/clashed, there was an expectation that spoken English/communication by lecturers and and tutors was a very high level and clear.

Much of the issues that need support/addressing arise, I think, from the changes in the way education is delivered. From the strict embargo on access to tutors (2x40 min meetings permitted per term, per student), from the design and acoustics of modern lecture theatres which are often much larger to accommodate larger student numbers, from assessments that focus more on quantitative rather than qualitative measures - ie, in order things that can be objectively measured [obviously in the interests of ensuring fairness, but in the process may have altered assessment to a reductive series of tick boxes on a grid system, rather than an expansive holistic one that is is geared towards tutor/department assessment not the students? In the arts and humanities at least, as that is really the only area I can reference with any knowledge or experience - am hoping it is slightly different in STEM subjects.

So, I am AuDHD like my daughter and uni/school was not an alien and incomprehensible place for me. It was, in fact, a safe space with supportive engaged teachers and tutors who were not straight jacketed by regulations and was both student centric. I think the changes in the education system have created an environment where ND has become an issue when it wasn’t before. It’s become a qualification delivery factory. On the other hand, as a result of the Blair initiative to get 50% of YP into university, I do agree with Stock that there are students really shouldn’t be accommodated within the system, and that includes people for whom their ND tips over from being a neuro/cognitive processing difference into an actual learning difficulty… people who really should not be at university but should have been following other pathways to qualification and employment. We don’t encourage people with physical disabilities into the construction trades, the army, etc due to the physical requirements. Why encourage people into uni for academic courses they shouldn’t be doing? The answer: money.

The more scaffolding that is put in place the easier a task becomes. The question is whether academic courses should require students to rise to the challenge with little help or being taught/coached to achieve the same standard. Really it depends what outcome you are trying to achieve.

That is a very muddled explanation!

As I said before, the outlandish claims don’t really bother me as much as the plagiarism. It seems to me that there is a kernel of truth in each claim but then he applies a generous dose of ‘CV inflation’ to reflect a more impressive picture.

Tthere is a picture of him at a fundraising running event. I am sure that he raised some money, but he then took up the idea of applying the whole amount raised to his own efforts. Perhaps he then began to believe it?

I happened to look at the LinkedIn of an ex-colleague. It described him as running a particular department, which I know was not the case. But he is a generally well-intentioned person and there is literally no merit in querying it.

"...the extraordinary background claims don't bother me. He is not getting paid as a marathon runner or a brain-tumour survivor."

Isn't a large part of the problem that he sold himself as this all-round incredible package, in talks, television programmes and so on?

The university bought into the whole story with unseemly haste - and even more so into the black, autistic and deprived aspect of the package - and were desperate to associate their brand with his. With all the damage that will now come with it.

His entry on the Jesus College website lists one of his pursuits as "tailoring" (presumably clothes rather than CVs).

You reap what you sew...

Yeah - didn’t mean to derail the thread - but it was really about the fact that there is a place for autism/ND to be acknowledged and embraced within a DEI-friendly system where it serves to enhance and enrich academic and social research rather than be about giving unfair and unwarranted legs up to people who shouldn’t be in that system.

It was sort of relevant because this is NOT what we have seen in Arday’s case. He has been treated like some sort of golden child of academia because of the drive to be SEEN to be DEI inclusive, rather than celebrated because he has excelled in his specialism by overcoming the social and educational disadvantages arising from his ethnicity and autism. It’s all upside down.

I agree

Lol to tailoring, well indeed!

What on earth are Jesus College thinking, posting this, yesterday? The comments are absolute gold, however...

https://x.com/julianhuppert/status/2084243613374947651?s=46&t=k338Buz4YOA2K4An3H5k-g

Yes, I also know someone who has risen to the higher echelons of a British university - with a completely fabricated backstory of how they didn't go to university. Like Jason Arday this lecturer's subject is closely woven into their life and experience. Their expertise is in "authenticity" and "imposter syndrome".

You couldn't make it up .....?

I can think of autistic maths and physics majors, I know plenty of mechanical engineers with dyslexia. These folks are all productive and successful. There isn’t really any resentment about accommodations because there isn’t much in the way of accommodation, and their contributions are significant.

It got me thinking that the Humanities/Social Sciences are different. It’s more subjective and easier to manipulate. I was heard the comment that the only thing that separates Sociology from Journalism is impenetrable language! Perhaps a bit unfair, but it highlights the credibility issues that the Humanities sometimes have with the general public.