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.

Still as long as the focus remains off Nigel Farage all is well I guess or was there something else we needed distracting from ? Perhaps that the planet is on fire? Who knows.

I think JA was absolutely a victim. He probably knew it was unusual to be appointed a professor at the age he was and felt a misjudged compulsion to add talents / events to his life because he perhaps felt like he needed to earn what he had been given? It’s extremely sad and he was really let down.

It’s not making him out to be a martyr at all. It’s pointing out the blatant hypocrisy of it all. He’s not the first Cambridge Professor to be accused of plagiarism, but the media attention he got was very different.

I don't see him just as a victim, although I was particularly concerned for his wellbeing when the press and online attention continued after his resignation. His (presumed) suicide is utterly tragic.

I believe Cambridge and other universities bear plenty of blame. As do those who fueled the continuing media story by defending him as an innocent victim of racism. And as do those who continue to hound him even after he stepped down.

He'd been foolish and deceptive, as well as unjustifiable aggressive to those investigating or criticising him. I would go so far as to say that he is more to blame for this than anyone else. I realise he was autistic, but he was also intelligent and understood truth v lies and right v wrong.

Nevertheless, I feel incredibly sad that he's dead, and so very sorry for his children and the rest of his family. What a terrible, tragic mess.

Yes good point. What was the media distracting everyone from for the past two weeks.

Students raised complaints and were labelled racists, that kind of mud sticks.

He also raised unrealistic expectations for parents of Autistic non verbal children, that's cruel.

Exactly this. You’ve got a genocide going on. The world is on fire. Yet let’s all focus on an autistic academic who has already admitted he made mistakes early in his career, and attributed it to his additional needs. Also, let’s pretend he’s the first academic to be accused of plagiarism when we know there was another Cambridge Professor who was proven to have plagiarised a student’s work yet didn’t get anywhere near the amount of attention that JA did. How people cannot see through it is beyond me.

No I wasn't aware.

But I am aware of Katie Price's husband, Lee Andrews, who also lied about being a billionaire, advisor to the Labour Party, being friends with Elon Musk & Kim Kardashian (who'd never heard of him); having a PhD from Cambridge University (should have applied for a job!) and endless other things that are not true.

He's had far more press coverage and media attention than Jason Arday and for months & months on end.

I think it’s the frustration of him always being described as a victim because some think he was the architect of his own downfall .
It’s desperately sad when anyone dies. His deception has being going on an awful long time in various elements of his life not just academia .

As far as I’m aware his claim that he began talking at age 11 and learnt to read and write at 18 hasn’t been disproven. In fact there’s been people corroborate that story. I know there’s a very slim chance that a non verbal autistic individual will learn to speak at a much later age (1%), but it wouldn’t be impossible for him to be in that 1% either.

It’s disingenuous to call these mistakes . He altered his whole persona and history to gain advantage.

Quite a few people who knew him in primary school said he was very chatty then

Yes but he’s famous purely for being in the public eye. That’s like comparing apples with oranges.

Comparing Jason Arday to Jeffrey Epstein is absolutely vile.

One wrong choice after another. A cautionary tale about telling lies, that’s for sure.

There was a guy on line who went to school, sports club and Sunday School with him, he had a very different story to tell...

There’s 101 influencers who have told bullshit lies and the receipts can easily be found on formal Tattle.

I think he was hounded more than these influencers because he’s black and journalists him didn’t attend Cambridge are enjoying the opportunity to slag off a uni that is higher ranked than their Alma mater.

I’ve only read the first few replies but I had mo
idea that he had been cleared of plagiarism. The media should have stopped the word once he’d been cleared rather than call him Professor Plagiarism.

Did the other profession call the police on journalists, send threatening lawyers letters from heavy-weight libel lawyers or accuse those who pointed out the plagerism of racism?

Are you saying committing suicide when you actions are brought to public attention doesn’t write-off your crimes? Or is that only the case for some people?

Genuinely I do feel like he had an issue with lying/exaggeration, I’m not even debating that. I don’t think he lied about it everything, but I do think the lies that he did tell make it difficult to believe other parts of his story. To me, a mentally well person doesn’t feel the need to create stories about themselves. I don’t think he was well and clearly suffering. The fact of the matter is it’s unlikely he would be dead today if Cambridge had carried out the proper checks. They are responsible as far as I can see.

Surprised there are so many on here who feel able to make judgements on a PhD thesis/have actually read it! The person publicising this case was himself sacked for his racist views. Does it really matter whether or not he ran 600 miles? I’m sure many people exaggerate their achievements
Does any of this really justify a person’s death

I’m not interested in what he did, really! there are men out there that have committed far, far worse crimes and haven’t had an ounce of the abuse, vitriol and hatred that Jason received, and it’s not stopping even after he’s taken his own life, and if anything, judging by some of these threads, it’s just getting worse.

I’m saying it’s disgusting to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein to compare a monster like that to Jason Arday. Jason Arday didn’t physically harm anyone. He didn’t go to prison. He wasn’t found guilty of anything criminal. So no, I don’t think the fact that two people committed suicide makes them similar.

Since when has The Guardian been right wing?

Someone on this Thread has even started comparing JA to Jeffrey Epstein. It’s madness.