Was Jason Arday just the perfect victim?

[KellyK2026]

Surely I can’t be the only one that feels like Jason Arday was a victim, right? Yesterday he was found dead and I feel bad for him. Here’s the reasons why I think he was a victim:

1. It is absolutely insane to me that Cambridge University would appoint him as a Professor when he was in the early stages of his career. It’s practically unheard of. At any university you typically have to earn your dues (which means working as an academic for many years) OR do something truly special, like a Nobel Prize nomination, to be promoted to Professor. I cannot imagine the amount of pressure he had been under to prove himself and likely had a tremendous amount of imposter syndrome. Cambridge let him down.
2. I’ve worked in academia for many years, and let me tell you, academics are under a tremendous amount of pressure to publish. This pressure can compromise quality. Arday isn’t the first nor will he be the last to publish questionable papers.
3. As I’ve worked in academia for years, I’ve experienced academics make racist and sexist remarks first hand. One white academic I worked with got drunk at a work get together and started a rant about how Black people shouldn't be president (this was when Obama was in power), that Obama was a Muslim and interracial relationships were ‘disgusting’. What made this somewhat even worse was that this particular academic wrote about racism in the public sphere, so he profited from writing about Black struggles while harbouring these personal views. There was no repercussions for him, despite presenting himself as something other than what he was.
4. I’ve also been sexually assaulted at a conference by a male academic. No repercussions for him either and he no doubt pretends to be a feminist in his work.
5. I don’t think it’s in doubt that Arday had autism. Now I don’t know how it affected him personally, but, again, that must’ve been extremely difficult and perhaps even blurred what is and isn’t acceptable in higher education.
6. He was also cleared of plagiarism but, again, so many academics have plagiarised ideas and papers, but they haven’t been strung up like Arday has been.

So, long story short, I feel like Cambridge let him down. And I feel like he was targeted because there’s plenty of other examples but they never get called out and nobody cares. It was a witch hunt. But I’d be interested to hear what others have to say on this matter.

Amen.

We also got told by OP that we were doing that what-ifs and couldn’t talk about that. 🙄.

This thread isn’t helping the JA case. It’s essentially a rehash of what people bemoan Cambridge for: not asking questions, just going along with the BeKind narrative.

Yes. Ironically it would have been kinder to realise that he wasn't what he seemed and encourage him to get help.

How can he be a victim when he was in the wrong

Cambridge appointed him without checking his academic credentials and then heavily promoted him as their youngest black professor. So they put him on a pedestal.
Another youtuber pointed out his 'extraordinary' feats in 2023!!
His personal CV about running marathons with a broken leg etc is something different.
That said, I feel very saddened by his death.
So, ultimately, I think he was let down by Cambridge
A man over promoted and out of his depth, yet in my view, Cambridge (as in the university and who hired him, etc) had a duty of care towards him and let him down badly.

It's sad that anyone takes their own life, but not sure he could be described as a victim. His employers should take a lot of the blame for their ridiculous acceptance of whatever they were told, but yes you have to wonder why his family did not intervene at any stage. I'd like to think my loved ones would do so if was making ever more outrageous and untrue claims in order to get a job.

I disagree. It was, imo, because he was a black man in such a high profile professorship and certain groups tried to use him to discredit black intelligence and excellence. The internet loves to jump on stories that frame black people as dishonest and ‘cheating’ - and the bots swarm of course. It’s all part of the same politics that slams diversity panels and claims POC and women are only hired because of DEI and don’t actually deserve it.

I made similar comments on one of the original threads but I think the blame is wider.

By the time he got to Cambridge his CV was impressive. The time at Glasgow (and Durham before that) elevated him.

He was already a professor by the time he got to Cambridge. Looking at someone who made that rank at a Scottish Ancient should indicate a certain competence.

I feel the academic ins and outs have been lost in the fantastical. He can't have fabricated everything. And if he did then that displays a sort of competence in itself.

This needs looking at at an institutional level and beyond Cambridge.

In life Jason Arday was a shyster, a con-man, a fraud, a fantasist and a liar, but boy, was he a player! He played 'the system' so well - he deserves a gold medal for that alone. You've got to admire his ability to use a very flawed system. He was probably internally laughing at the processes and the 'white saviours' who encouraged and supported his game. Nobody knows.

He got found out and before he was made to account for himself and face the consequences of his own choices, sadly, for those who loved him and his two children, he died. He may have been mentally sick or he may have been a supreme manipulative narcissist - with his death, we will never know. IF he killed himself, then in death, he is also showing himself to be a coward unable to face up to being found out. What a very sad individual who has left his children with an awful legacy and memory. It is them I feel sorry for.

Lol! The sheer audacity to presume my political views because you felt entitled to know them and I didn’t give it to you. This is hilarious and has nothing to do with the Thread. So please move along.

“I feel like a lot of people’s public personas don’t match reality“ this, and I think academics have been held on a pedestal for quite some time and this is just the bitter bitter reality. Cambridge has everything to answer for, universities in general

I think he was massively exploited by Cambridge, lied and maybe started to believe his own lies. It’s a very sad end to this story. Journalists have a right to scrutinise and this is important. Wish he’d have ridden it out, given it time etc as I’m sure everyone would have moved on.

Sadly I think Cambridge saw themselves being able to tick a massive diversity box. It’s ironic that this university that takes only the brightest students after careful consideration made such a stupid choice.

Shame on them and I hope that Cambridge and their hiring methods are held to account and ripped apart. They have done severe damage to themselves with this shit show

IMO those Cambridge academics who hired and lauded him, are almost entirely responsible for this tragedy. They were so blinded by ‘wokery’ and their desire for a poster boy for their DEI policies, that they omitted to check any of his credentials.

I’ve read just today, that research papers of the head of the faculty of education that made him a professor, were concerned largely with the matter of ‘white privilege’. Very telling, I thought.

Can you please keep political arguments off this Thread. It’s inappropriate. If you want to comment about the situation in Gaza, please create a Thread about it.

Yes, me too. It’s a shame as this would’ve blown over but I understand when you’re in it it probably doesn’t feel like that.

Thanks, I'll post what I like where I like though.

If Karen Matthews had killed herself, no damn way would there be threads questioning if she was a victim. She acted immorally, tried to profit from it, got caught. Fine, she went one further than JA and drugged Shannon, but use your imaginations and see the parallels. You can say she was a victim of an impoverished life and upbringing and blah blah blah.

So, whilst the Epstein comment on its face and facts is petrol, on the principle, I think it’s a good point to make. Someone fucks around and finds out, and if you’re JA and kill yourself, you’re potentially a martyr…but the same isn’t true of JE (for the sake of a closer comparison, image his 2008 conviction didn’t happen)… a wealthy white guy gets accused and arrested for all that JE did, hangs himself…hasn’t stood trial. Nobody gave a shit. Same thing, as a PP pointed out, for Charlie Kirk.

You don't know the half of it...
It's was started 3 years ago by a colleague of Arday's at Cambridge, Nathan Cofnas, a professor of philosophy at Cambridge. Prof Cofnas started a blog which was controversial among staff and students about how dei is inappropriate as he believed the black race were intellectually inferior and without dei would only excell in sport and entertainment. This is the guy that requested info about Arday's research... Plagiarism software wasn't widely available 10 years ago.
You'll find all this detail and more if you Google Nathan Cofnas

OP : Arday’s swift ascent in Academia was the Peter Principle unchained,
unusually on display for all to see, criticise, wonder at, when he revelled in the
attention this placement brought him.

He brought everything tumbling down on his own head, with no one to temper
his tall stories or apply restraint, he was always on borrowed time.
How was he a victim? His hapless students were victims.

Yes, I agree. I do think he was exploited and it's also right that journalists reported this story. He had already resigned, I wonder if he could have been helped to move on?

I agree! He did play the system

I matriculated in 2005 and TurnItIn was a huge thing then

I feel very sorry for JA - he clearly had some struggles and found himself in a situation that was obviously very overwhelming with all the negative press attention. He should have kept a low profile for a while until things settled. Cambridge Uni is partly to blame imo.