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.

Vile

Surely someone at CU thought ‘hold on a minute’. I loved 7 Up. Thought it was a brilliant idea. Did anyone not think something is not right here?

Anyone???

Yes but this correlates with high intelligence.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/archive/news/ioppn/records/2018/march/high-iq-autistic-people-learn-social-skills-at-a-price

He could have been a rarity but considering everything else that seems unlikely.

I think they just chose to ignore the alarm bells.

I disagree completely with that premise as everything my council puts out about EDI uses DEI and they stand for the same so your just looking for a way to blame right wing uneducated fools which is rather ironic in this case

Maurice, don't go! We love you.

I had a cat named Maurice that I was very fond of.

The Pigs Head story in The Guardian is an interesting read, because despite the investigative journalist's efforts to verify it (with the Met Police, local butchers in South London, etc) there was little evidence that it happened. It reminded me of Jussie Smollett, but Arday was clearly being using it as a smoke screen, to garner sympathy and to silence all criticism. I hate to say it but very much playing the race card.

Then I seriously doubt that they are autistic rather than just more wannabes who claim the label. They asd support groups are so full of them that most actual autistic people have left them

So sorry to hear about your cat @Charlize43 . It is such a worry when our dear pets are ill and need expensive treatments.

I was so shocked to hear about this man, a fantasist, becoming a Professor at one of the UK's most excellent universities, none of his outlandish claims or work were checked by Cambridge staff, everything he claimed was believed! Watching film of these academics and the BBC fawn over him solely because of what he represented to their ability to virtue signal their DEI status was revolting, shameful and embarrassing. Cambridge University failed this man and indeed every other institution who encouraged him to continue, the police, BBC, the Good Law Project, are all complicit in "using" him to their own DEI ends. I am so angry because now, due to their actions and non-action/negligence, a family is forever without their dad/husband. Who was supporting this man from these institutions? None of them, they used him and discarded him when it all got too hot for them to handle.

I think he was good at telling stories that were just really really beguiling and maybe not 100% true.

And that worked in his favour when he was being hired to his position but he didn't anticipate how that could work against him too.

I just couldn't help finding the "story" so fascinating, so fantastic: it seemed to play to so many unresolved issues we have today - what is really true? can we trust what we read? what can be done to counteract rascism? exactly how infallible are these ancient institutions? is the whole story I am reading the agenda of rascists or peopler who want to undermine the Cambridge and the concept of DEI (like they have in US). How can I believe what I read?

I wish I had not found it so irresistable and I really feel sorry for the outcome. And yet here I am commenting once again when maybe I should not.

I think he was very vulnerable. He was also an inspiration to a lot of young people and CU had the best of intentions.

I heard him on R4 a couple of months ago and he sounded like just another academic to me.

He is among a lot of other academics who have questionable stuff in their academic careers. His hurt no one. I've known professors who have actively put students at risk who are still working in leadership roles in their instituations.

He was absolutely targeted due to racism. And frankly, Nathan Cofnas, who has himself been acused of plagarism, should be drummed out of academia for the bullying (as should others). The man is dead for gods sake.

If the allegations are substantiated, then the institutions that promoted him as an inspirational "youngest Black professor" failed in their responsibility to scrutinise his academic record properly. The controversy raises a serious question about whether symbolic significance and diversity credentials were allowed to become part of the narrative surrounding his appointment in a way that potentially overshadowed rigorous assessment of academic merit.

I imagine the pressure of the title of 'youngest Black professor' to be huge; and the weight made heavier if you were a fraud who didn't deserve the title in the first place.

Absolutely he was. He was clearly a bit of a fantasist and eccentric but nobody checked his work and stopped him. They encouraged him and used him as an easy way to black wash their institutions.

I wish he could've fought back and tried to defend himself and exposed the institutions that allowed this to happen. Rather than this tragic end.

I have autism. Diagnosed, confirmed etc.

If you met me in a professional capacity you would never know this was the case. If you met me socially, if it was a good day for me, you probably wouldn't suspect it. You also wouldn't know that, after a day of being bright and confident and engaging to people at work, I go home at night so exhausted that I sometimes go to bed at 8pm. Or that once, before a work party, I locked myself in the toilets for an hour wondering whether I could injure myself in some way so I had a legitimate excuse to go home because nobody would understand that it was too loud with too many people, and had to force a couple of drinks down me to be able to go out and be smiley and chatty with my external clients like everyone else.

I wasn't diagnosed until my 40s, btw, though I suspect that would have not been the case if I had mutism or the severe learning difficulties JA talked about.

I do wonder how many other PhDs would be caught out if they were put through software like his was, but why was his chosen?

But Jason Arday wasn't just any other PhD. He was a very early career academic catapulted into a professorial role, a role that is reserved for academics who have years of experience behind them, a catalogue of international publications and research that has been groundbreaking, a trail of of having taught, mentored and supervised many successful PhD candidates. In other words, someone with a proven track record of academic distinction and impact. Jason Arday had none of this. So, to answer your question as to why his thesis and his life was scrutinised to the degree that it was: because people were looking to find the reason why Cambridge appointed him to the role of professor. And when that evidence was found wanting, Cambridge, Arday and his supporters, all doubled down and called anyone questioning this apppointment racists.

No, they’ve been diagnosed.

Your council is probably fairly reliant on AI to write things, I'm guessing.

A lot of right wing fools are surprisingly well educated.

If you've met one autistic person....you've met one autistic person.

I never mentioned Gaza at all. I simply mentioned Nigeria, China and Myanmar and asked you which "genocide" you were referring to - it was yourself that started the talk of "genocide" on this thread.

You are also the first person on this thread to raise the issue of Gaza.

This is exactly it. Look, we're not institutionally racist, we have a young black guy right here! He's even working class and everything!!

Like I said, your posts have been deleted for breaking MN guidelines. Stop posting political talking points on my Thread.

Fight back with what? More lies? More police reports? More accusations of racism?

Was he used? Yes. He benefited massively from it though, it wasn’t forced on him and he lapped every bit of attention, accolades and being in the public eye. He didn’t say no to any “opportunities “ regardless how they came his way. And he used lawyers and the police when his “fame” was threatened. Why is all this being ignored?

Fun fact, I had a colleague who interviewed at Cambridge and he overheard a member of staff telling a prospective student ‘don’t worry, we only have the right sort of student here’. If they wanted to erase racism in their institution, they should’ve started with some of their staff’s attitudes. It turned my colleague off going there.

In diagnosed autistic, my son is severely autistic, most of my friends and half my wider family are all autistic.
I also endured the torture of ABA you cant teach an autistic person not to be autistic and be great public speakers who use normal eye contact no matter how hard you try