Jason Arday, Cambridge Plagiarist, thread two

[Angeruish]

We are nearing our 1000-post limit on the original thread:
https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/education/5561878-jason-arday-cambridge-plagiarist?reply=153910946

I have now removed the question mark after "plagiarist".

I can't believe the sequel will be as good as the original, but you never know...

🙄 Hysteria about 'wokeness' seems to be imported from the USA to a far greater degree than CRT. Criticality about race has a long long history in British academia and scholarship. If Britain hadn't exported so many slaves, nor violently colonised many parts of the globe and then bore a smidgeon of the consequences maybe criticality about white hegemony wouldn't have had such a history. Not everything you dislike is from 'outside'

Amazing that the first woman of colour to lead a Party is actually a Conservative and all the liberals are hating on her. Just as the former incumbent was a man of colour.

Speechless is definitely worth watching - gang bullying

SBC is an interesting character in his own right. I’d reserve judgment on that myself

Yes it’s pretty vicious.

That was a shocking section of the show. Especially as it was a black academic trying to maintain standards. I couldn’t get my head around how a black man could be accused of being a white supremacist?! Simply for maintaining an academic convention… no measurable “harm” involved

I have started to wonder if Labour will ever have a female leader. I’d always seen the more obvious sexism of conservative males and completely missed how much worse sexism is on the left. This whole gender thing has turned my world view upside down and im having to question everything now!

@YourAmplePlumPoster For me, it’s nothing to do with Kemi Badenoch’s or Rishi Sunak’s skin colour. It’s about what they’ve said and the political views they have - which I don’t agree with.

I'm struggling with the apparent view that all of this was down to racism. It wasn't. I don't consider myself a racist person but I'm double and triple checking myself, reminding myself of why this thread was started.

Most people lie on their CV? Well you know what they say about liars and good memories. I think small things such as lying about a Master's degree might be a clue.

She's also been one of the leading figures in academic trans activism. I guess that at some point she'll be looking to get off that train before it hits the buffers.

The point about his cv is a moot one. Lots of his claims were known about. His research could have been checked. Nothing has to be taken at face value. Cambridge I suspect wanted the “poster boy” though and not for academic reasons.

@Yorkshirelass04 I’m struggling with the BBCs interviewing of peoole asserting racism and never ever putting another view. It’s poor.

In admissions they have been surprisingly open about their take on academic standards vs "optics". They provided the following as a justification for reducing their intake of privately educated students, I have always found it quite astonishing, coming from a nominally elite university, but it makes Arday's appointment more understandable:

"We recognise that school type is not a characteristic used by the OfS or contained within its Access and Participation dataset; we recognise too that the state versus independent binary masks a range of educational experiences. It is however a measure published annually by HESA to allow comparison between HEIs, and is of high interest to the public, politicians and the media."

There is a grimly hilarious article in The Atlantic (which may have been posted earlier) that describes much the same thing: "Why I quit the tenure track - The insufferable hypocrisy of elite academia".

www.theatlantic.com/magazine/2026/09/elite-academia-leadership-hypocrisy/687969/

Racism blaming is so irresponsible. Worse, it’s rude & off-putting if you fancied university (and aren’t white).

There are squirm-making
questions to be answered by Cambridge. They’ll be dodging them now. You don’t say.

Some publication said ‘white academics are allowed to fail’ whereas JA wasn’t - it’s the university that failed, as Cambridge know full well.

As it happens unsuitable academics of all skin colours do get the sack; JA didn’t. He was pushed forward for three years.

This tragedy doesn’t have a one-word answer. Unless you want it to happen twice.

Activists tend to turn on their self proclaimed allies eventually. I saw that some on The Other Issue have now shunned Sadiq "you are loved and wanted" Khan bc be made an approving twitter post about a Harry Potter shop opening in Oxford Street. It's just a matter of when for Gopal.

I'm sure she'll be able to ride out any backlash as she's quite able to decamp elsewhere, but she's one of those academics that are Very Very Online

I have been following this thread but had to step away for a while after the suicide. I wish his family the best.

i really believe that Cambridge is the key villain here, not the majority of the press.

i still believe that academics who were infinitely more qualified were hard done by, the professorship could have been life changing for one of them. I also still believe that the students (massive student loans, no supervision, no proper lecturers, bad grades and accused of racism if they complained) were victims in this.

now, in addition, I believe that there was a vulnerable man in the middle of all this. Hired by a university who wanted a poster boy, hired in a shambles process, supported in police reports and legal threats to anyone questioning him (quite obvious that this not will work on journalists if the questions are factual and polite) and then hung out to dry without support once the tide turned and the poster boy image was tarnished.

Cambridge and its management has blood on their hands in my opinion.

@Marchesman The article peters out - sadly.

I know I’m a simple person - I just want the best person for the job. No lies and no other agenda. Academia is its own worst enemy by trying to manipulate who gets what. The pool of excellent students is vast - they can have a wide choice but I don’t like promoting anyone demonstrably less good over better qualified candidates. Not only that, I’m amazed the passed over people don’t go to an employment tribunal.

Great post.

I think the situation may have been years in the making with continual comment by politicians about the small proportion of black students and staff at Oxbridge to score political points. Do they take some of the blame ultimately?

https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/oct/19/oxford-accused-of-social-apartheid-as-colleges-admit-no-black-students

I agree wholeheartedly.

You might be able to find the article here:
https://princetoniansforfreespeech.org/blogs/national-free-speech-news-commentary-3/why-i-quit-the-tenure-track

The author has subsequently written specifically about the Cambridge debacle - "The Truths That Failed Jason Arday". I haven't been able to read this one, but I don't imagine for a moment that there is anything funny about it, unlike the other describing his own experiences as a (black) academic.

So we are doomed to repeat.....

The commentary about the low proportion of black students and lecturers will increase in volume after Jason's death.

Commentators will gleefully highlight the stats bad evidence of a hideously racist Cambridge and there will be pressure like it or not for the university and colleges to accept black s students or lecturers over their marginally better white peers. You are enforcing positive discrimination( or at least encouaging). through sustained political pressure and infering the academic body as whole is racist.

Do our laws embed those outcomes though?

@mids2019 What about the Sutton Trust? Very vocal in terms of equality in education and very influential. There are other pressure groups too.

What about the myriads of education commentators who have called Oxbridge white students from private schools “ras” and far worse. Lots of articles about certain categories of students being undeserving whilst others don’t get a place. What about articles that write about a few private school boys and make it look like Oxbridge is full of them - which is absolute rubbish. How often do you see on MN that this unfounded rubbish persuades other dc not to even apply because everyone there is a toff from a private school? This all feeds in to what Cambridge has done. However it does not mean they ignore obvious shortcomings in candidates for jobs. The need to counter the stories but should not compromise seeking excellence.

Don't think this has been posted before:

x.com/PhilipSwallow2/status/2089357106445001124

Now I read he tried to implicate the local butcher in a racist hate crime by saying he sent a pig's head to his parents house. The police said no such report was made. The man was unwell clearly.

Very well said that man. The denial comments on that tweet are so predictable. Here you have somebody who is qualified and experienced to critique Arday's work and that's not good enough. Then it's the fallback argument of well his lies don't matter because of the media pressure. When are these people going to get into the real world. His lies mattered greatly in the environment he was in.