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???

Is anyone seriously suggesting Arday would have got the job without ticking the black, autistic and underprivileged boxes?

If "lived experience" (not a term I like) becomes a primary recruitment criterion, then a university really shouldn't be surprised by the backlash when a story starts to unravel.

Thank you. Since I posted I read that the awarding body for the PhD said it was legit, ie they couldn't prove plagiarism. But it doesn't look good at all does it?

LJMU has a vested interest in coming to that finding. To do otherwise would be to admit that their supervisory processes were severely deficient and the examiners were not fully competent. Easier to waive it through than admit that and deal with the institutional and reputational fallout. I doubt they envisaged it would end up being scrutinised in the national media.

He asked that we attribute the quotes to 'a source close to Professor Arday'.

Interesting, all these clarifications coming out - it wasn't him who raised 5.5m but he was one of 100, it wasn't 7 Up the famous TV show, just a local thing like it. All shows how little accuracy and honesty mattered all round, never mind in any academic rigour. Right down to the request to quote a source close to himself.

It's like he's created a character Professor Arday whose biography is made up but based on the ghost of a truth in some things the real Jason has done. Major compartmentalising has gone on here if not a downright delusional mindset.

To add to the above:
Earlier this year, two universities that had given Arday honorary degrees and doctorates amended their websites, with Southampton Solent University removing the 600 miles citation, and Anglia Ruskin University changing the six days claim to 12 days. (from Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head, The Guardian)

Dr David Harris, professor emeritus at Plymouth Marjon University got two corrections made to different papers, authored by Arday. These papers can be accessed in The Guardian article on the plagiarism.

The University of Bath also issued a statement a few days ago, correcting something that appears to have stood there for three years:

"The post incorrectly stated that Professor Arday played football to a professional level and joined a professional snooker tour, when he had in fact said he played football to a semi-professional level and did not pursue snooker professionally."

One wonders what will be left once all these corrections/amendments are made.

Not trying to justify the missteps made in the appointment (viz. failing rigorously to assess the quality and originality of candidate's research), but it's easy to see how a panel with good intentions got carried away by the romance of the story. A gifted academic from a non-traditional background can be a wonderful role model for students; taking a risk on a young and unproven candidate could be defended in that light. The doubling down by Cambridge now on what was a major error of judgment, given the incontrovertible evidence of plagiarism that has come to light and the institution's professed commitment to academic integrity, is maybe even more disturbing than the original mistake. What's also disturbing are Arday's claims (reported by the Guardian) that he's being constantly attacked and racially abused, which seem to be unsubstantiated. If these reports are fabricated, then this appears to be highly calculated weaponisation of victimhood (to pre-empt scrutiny and criticism) rather than the delusions of a fantasist.

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

They probably do. They just have to make use of it.

I've just Googled 'study skills' + a university I have connections with. They offer 'Skills for Academic Success' for all students. There are masses of online articles and videos, plus in-person workshops, plus the option of booking a 1:1 appointment, plus 'peer-assisted learning'. The online articles include a section on plagiarism. That's just skimming the main headings.

A friend of mine used to run a study skills module at her university. She said the problems were
a) getting the students to turn up
b) getting them to engage when they did turn up.

How he went from LJMU to a Cambridge professorship in 7 years, with no glittering publication record or groundbreaking discoveries to speak of, raises serious questions. And the other institutions tripping over themselves to give him honorary degrees - based upon what exactly? And that’s before the Walter Mitty personal life.

Sense check - this is someone who apparently went from a working class council estate background, illiterate with no A Levels to BA degree in four years. Followed by two masters degrees and a PGCE then a PhD. Where did the funding for all that come from?

What is also interesting, is the complete dearth of people from earlier in his career/his school days/family/students corroborating any of his claims.

To be honest, knowing people from minority and WC backgrounds who have and still are slogging their guts out in academia, often for fuck all reward, I don’t feel even slightly sorry for this fantasist/fraudster and I’m not going to fret over whether he’s going to be ok now his elaborate house of (well paid) cards is about to collapse. He’s done a massive disservice to WC/minority/ND academics and already struggling humanities subjects.

Yes, and weaponisation by whom?
Who are the invisible protectors/ publicists standing behind him? Is their goal entirely commercial or is it political?
I cannot see he can have done all this alone.
Alternatively, is is it pushed forward at the societal level?

There’s previous for bogus scholarship:

‘The grievance studies affair was the project of a team of three authors—Peter Boghossian, James A. Lindsay, and Helen Pluckrose—to highlight what they saw as poor scholarship and erosion of standards in several academic fields. Taking place over 2017 and 2018, their project entailed submitting bogus papers to academic journals on topics from the field of critical social theory such as cultural, queer, race, gender, fat, and sexuality studies to determine whether they would pass through peer review and be accepted for publication. Four of these papers were published, which the authors cited in support of their contention’

Jason Arday was scheduled to have an interview with The New York Times, on Monday, which was cancelled. They have done an article instead. In that, another British academic raised questions 3 years ago:

Martyn Hammersley, an emeritus professor of educational and social research at the Open University in Britain and an expert on research methodology, contacted Cambridge in 2023 with questions about what he said was significant plagiarism in some of Arday’s work. In an interview with The Times last week, he lamented that the political and racially charged debate has overshadowed important questions about academic rigor.
“We now have a public scandal in which right and left confront one another, so that there is not much space for sensible discussion of the issues,” he said.

“We now have a public scandal in which right and left confront one another, so that there is not much space for sensible discussion of the issues,” he said

What would constitute ‘sensible discussion’ in this case?

I wonder if any parts of his book are hastily being re-written?

For those asking question re: earlier career and funding. This paper gives earlier details:

Jason-Arday-Biography-June-2019.pdf

This really.

Also for years Oxbridge amongst others have been castigated for their very low percentages of afro Caribbean students and teaching staff and maybe the appointment was a very nasty reaction to this continual criticism. It certainly is not a good luck.

I think the question now is can be remain in his job and if so how can Cambridge repair the reputational damage? It's a headache for them.

You know what it's like when you see somebody using too many capital letters and instantly know they are on the thick side?

This guy ain't no Cambridge professor.

That 'clarification' looks laughable after having been called out in a whopper of a grandiose claim. 'I was part of a programme…that doesn’t really exist any more…they follow you at 7, 14, 21…'

Now, it may just be me, but that does indeed sound remarkably like the well-known TV programme 'Seven Up', not a local community and parent-led initiative developed around the Ubuntu principle that 'it takes a village to raise a child'.

I’ve not RTFT but I read law at Jesus many moons ago.

I used to donate to their alumni fund, but cancelled this after the Master (the same one who appointed Arday) wasted a shocking £250k on lawyers in a failed attempt to remove a stone plaque from the college chapel. The plaque commemorated a major college donor from the 17th century who had links to slavery.

FFS!!! There are many ways in which the college could have condemned the donor and distanced itself from his slavery links (the college was found not to have directly benefited from slave trade dividends as claimed) without spaffing a quarter of a million pounds on virtue signalling! And so many better ways to spend that money!

So when I read that it was Jesus College who appointed Arday I was depressed/ashamed but also entirely unsurprised.

ETA - of course it can’t just be the Master who is responsible for this fuckwittery; she must be supported by a number of others in the governing body.

His charity fundraising has been mentioned and questioned.

@Angeruish He's clearly a fraud. However, he might have had a reader/scribe for the GCSEs in Textiles and P.E.

I found his claim to have been in in '7 Up' hilarious. He obviously never even watched it.

Yup. I recall that when I did my P.G.C.E. in Jordanhill in '84, it was actually shown to all students in our cohort.

The last two papers I peer reviewed were bloody awful - but at least there were kernals of good ideas within them. So I marked them as 'major revisions needed prior to any hope of publication'. One disappeared; one was published, after being re-worked, six months later in the online open-access version of the journal.

How did Arday's stuff slip through the peer review net? And why do academics like me bother to do it properly? Peer review is arduous, time-consuming and unpaid. My family 'lose' me entirely those weekends when I have a peer review to undertake.

And I still think one of Arday's patrons has objectified him as an attractive black man. IMO it's her unconscious racism needs looking at.