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???

But then Glasgow uni said he was never a member of staff there?

Can I get a job like this please?

You can do this.

<Waves pompoms>

<Locks AnonyMumAuDHD in dining room>

But then Glasgow uni said he was never a member of staff there?

I think they said he was never a visiting professor. He might have had some other position - I can't keep track of all the universities he's said to have been associated with.

I have not read all this thread, but I have followed the story in the Times.
Aside from the accusations of plagiarism and the fantastical claims.
If his writing were all correct, So what? Really, so what.
Who Benefits?
Is this merely a piece of writing that appeals to 9 people in a senior drinking den in a forgotten corner of an ancient university? Or does this word salad have meaning to real people in real life.
JM Liverpool University studies football hooligans I thought.
Will the publisher sell a copy to most universities in the western world? Is this their business model?
Who benefits from university departments who generate this stuff. Surely the Prime minister could better apply those funds in an Apprentice College.

ps. I am in admiration of the detailed scholarship and erudition of many oy you who have posted. I will try to read it all soon.

He was definitely a full professor there, just before his Cambridge appointment. He claims that he is currently a Visiting Professor; that is what the university denies.

Studying football hooligans sounds like a good idea if you want to eliminate them. I presume that educational research can be very useful. I have read some good stuff there.

But you are right that there is a danger of talking to yourself, going with what is fashionable, going for markers of esteems instead of real enquiry. I think this is a real problem which extends far beyond Jason Arday, LJMU, Cambridge, education, or critical race theory. The incentives built into our HE system tend to encourage it.

@Cholm Most academic work is only read by a handful of people! But the idea is that it could then be an important step in making progress in their own research, or in some cases it could affect what they teach or how they think.

The bigger question is why sociology should be studied (or indeed any humanities subject). Personally, I think that it's important to have clever people thinking deeply about how power-dynamics in groups work, which is one (arguable) definition of what sociology is about. Put like that, sociology is obviously useful! In the case of Arday's field, theories might eventually inform how teachers are trained, and how schools work.

There have been some genuinely brilliant sociologists, insightful and thought-provoking. But any field and any job also has its fair share of charlatans (and academic humanities subjects perhaps more than most).

I do agree that they were under pressure in an impossible situation.

They were craven, they took the easy way out. With all their power and prestige, they couldn’t be bothered to stand up for their core values and articulate them.

It’s a lesson to us all. When you compromise your values to hang onto your position, you undermine what you are trying to hang onto.

Surely sociology should be more than power dynamics. Isn’t that part of how we got into this mess?

I did say it was an arguable definition! But a key aspect of any society or group is, ironically, who has power to control what others say or do... exactly what is in question in this whole situation!

University of Glasgow has denied he was ever a visiting professor there as he has claimed.

I really don't agree Cambridge was in an impossible situation. Nobody held a gun to their head and made them come out with Arday as their youngest black professor.

They've been criticised for not being representative in the past; they will be again; and they'll survive it. If they want to ensure their student body and faculty include black British scholars, that takes work over time and rigorous assessment of academic merit. They appear to have hired Arday for an easy win, doing everyone concerned a disservice.

How is a university supposed to come up with more excellent candidates who tick these boxes, for race or ethnicity, gender identity, sex in some cases, class - if the people don't exist?

Don’t assume they don’t exist. Search harder. Go and hunt round American universities and poach back all the clever English black scholars who crossed the Atlantic in the 80s and 90s because they thought they would never be accepted in the UK. Expand your definition of what brilliance looks like and hire the overweight middle aged woman with a regional accent in a low ranking institution who has done great work but doesn’t fit the stereotype of academic talent like the shiny eyed young man does. Create mentoring opportunities that will help people 5-10 years from being professor-ready to develop. There’s loads that can be done without compromising standards but it’s more effort than just hiring someone who looks good superficially.

Well spotted. Raynor clearly has a double life too

btw, did you know he was Jason A K Arday, as in...

Jason AKA...

Mmmmm, perhaps the joke is on us, and a big reveal is coming

I think we are in agreement.

Yes, they said he wasn't a visiting professor. Methinks they phrased it so we would assume, as you quite reasonably did, that he had never been associated in any way, but unfortunately for them he was.

The Herald says that he was given the chair in the sociology of education at Glasgow in 2021, "making him one of the youngest professors in the UK".

But clearly people are steering well clear of him at this point.

I don't know how it is physically possible to do a PhD in 2.5 years whilst working full time. It took me 6 and it was worth taking that long to allow ideas to mature. Unless his fieldwork was tiny which by the sounds of things it was.

I am wondering whether some of his actions are driven by male entitlement as well as being misled by institutions. Although I know there are female blaggers also like Jessica Taylor. 'You have to take me seriously because I'm working class'.

The Guardian said the other day that Arday met Andy Murray when a torchbearer for the London Olympics, via the TV programme Surprise, Surprise, and that Murray later said that Arday's 30-marathons-on-a-fractured-leg story inspired him to victory in his gold medal win against Novak Djokovic (incidentally it was Federer not Djokovic, any Guardian journos reading).
The story continues
"When asked by reporters at the time why he carried on, Arday said: 'When I fell over, I didn’t want to have to pay back thousands of pounds.'"

That leaves me wondering how you get to the point of having to pay back money in a charity fund raiser...

I don't know how it is physically possible to do a PhD in 2.5 years whilst working full time.

Presumably if you plagiarise extensively from the work of others & don't bother to try & hide it then it's pretty easy to complete a PhD in 2.5 years.

I can't remember the exact wording but I wonder if he meant he was working full-time on his thesis? I suspect he thinks because he's a professor who visits universities then that makes him a Visiting Professor?!

Hilary Cremin, Professor of Education and Head of Faculty: “The board of electors on your interview were absolutely unanimous. We are so lucky to have you. You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do.”

Who was on this interview panel? Did they read any of his research? In the Cofnas post, of Ardey’s 10 (self-selected) most important publications, 4 are plagiarised, 3 more are minimally contributed to, and a further 2 are not even research papers.

Bhaskar Vira, Professor and PVC Education: "Jason Arday is an exceptional scholar of race, inequality and education. He will contribute significantly to Cambridge’s research in this area...”

Even setting aside the plagiarism, “His research involves reporting his own experiences of alleged racism or having conversations with people and providing subjective commentary.” (Cofnas). Prof. Vira, is this what you consider to be ‘exceptional scholarship’? Profs Vira and Cremin, do you have anything to say to the applicants who weren’t shortlisted or appointed when he was?

First paper in 2018 and Senior Lectureship at Roehampton. With 1 paper! Associate Professor at Durham University 2019, Full Professor at Glasgow 2021, Cambridge 2024. Do any of these institutions have anything to say? Liverpool John Moores – do you run PhD theses through Turnitin?! How on Earth was a thesis with 188 sections of matched text, nonsensical writing, no data analysis, and riddled with spelling and grammar errors (including in the title!) allowed to pass? Who examined it?!?

Who (presumably at Cambridge) authorised and instructed Carter Ruck in response to emailed questions regarding discrepancies in the work? Will there be an explanation from the Metropolitan Police as to why there was a 4-month investigation of the THES journalist (which resulted in his being told not to contact Ardey further)?

I could go on and on, but the whole thing is completely crazy.

He calls the police when journalists ask him questions but he doesn't call the police when he sees a knifeman on campus.

I have no pity for this man - I'm shamelessly enjoying the pile-on on X.com

Apologies if double posting, but this piece by Donna Louise Flowers sums things up:
https://donnalouiseflowers.substack.com/p/believe-me?

edited because I balls’d up the link

My sadness has morphed into anger. The more I hear the more manipulative he sounds.
The Carter Ruck letter and harassment accusations are someone abusing his power.

There are a lot of people who are intellectually clever, but who have got where they have got by doing as they are told and, when given a choice, ticking the correct boxes. There are parts of academia where it pays NOT to ask awkward questions or to buck the prevailing viewpoint held by the more powerful members of the department.

So all the more junior staff, who are used to being good cogs (after all, it's got them where they wanted to be), follow the lead set for them. So if you have an academic body, or a university managerial class, where those with the power are wedded to DEI, you have to be brave or foolish to stand up to them.

Why they are wedded to DEI is another question, which I can't answer, because from where I am, it looks like a special type of raving insanity. I have a few hunches, but I'm not sure that they're reliable.

On the topic about signing off that it's all your own work, I'm 99% certain that when I handed in my thesis, I had to sign a form saying that it was all my own. I seem to remember having a minor ethical panic because a friend had conducted an interview on my behalf, and then thinking, no, it's fine, the interview was properly referenced as being carried out by her in X place on Y date.