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.

If Cambridge had any decency they would have stepped in. Instead, they covered their own egotistical backs and threw JA to the wolves. You can have a prestigious alumni, an esteemed reputation, but underneath all that lies a lack of class.

But the people who visited JA in the days before his death said that there were media in front of his house and he didn’t feel he could leave

That's the first time I have seen that allegation. Please can you provide a link?

That claim was made by a single student and it was not verified. The student in question scored 70% in an essay which is a first class mark. He didn’t mark them low, as has been falsely reported. But I don’t know why you’d believe a student at face value without any evidence. If they felt that strongly about it surely they would’ve reported it.

Its not just 1 student its a whole bunch of them who are now sueing the universities who employed him due to his poor teaching, not turning up to lectures, not teaching the course work, not supervising their work as expected and a whole host of other issues so no its not just 1 student

You are missing the point.

Deliberately.

Whilst illustrating mine.

Thanks.

You’re wrong, the claim came from a single student. Other students have criticised his teaching but then a whole lot more have said he was wonderful. Let’s not cherry pick.

It's Cambridge's lack of due diligence that's ultimately at fault.

By all means have programmes to help disadvantaged backgrounds. But make sure they are working and they aren't abused.

Cos if they are, it all goes tits up and the people harmed are those who need support and help most.

Arday wasn't a suitable candidate for the opportunities he got. Because he took the piss. That doesn't mean they aren't suitable candidates who should have been given the opportunity.

The media and members of the public were stationed outside Jason Arday’s house in the days leading up to his death. Public reports and accounts from close friends reveal that the relentless scrutiny physically trapped him in his home and continued to impact his family after his passing. 1, 2]
Media Presence Outside the House

• Before his death: Arday’s close friend, academic Hindi Andrews, stated that the intense "avalanche of stories" left Arday overwhelmed and deeply depressed. Andrews noted that Arday felt completely unable to leave his house due to the presence of people stationed outside. 1]
• After his death: The media presence escalated significantly. Activist Misan Harriman and Member of Parliament Bell Ribeiro-Addy publicly condemned journalists for gathering outside the family home, pressuring grieving relatives for comments, and putting them at risk by leaking their address online. 1, 2]

Novara media have reported on it and numerous friends of JA have talked about it. JA’s colleagues also said they were harassed. One Professor said he received at least 100 media requests to talk about JA. JA couldn’t escape it and neither could his friends, family and colleagues.

After his death, his family have been hounded as media have gathered at their home. The BBC have reported on that if you want to look it up.

The fundamental question is does his research output and quality align with a Personal Chair.

The rest is just noise. There are plenty of eccentrics in academia and he didn't get the job based on how many marathons he ran.

Unfortunately from what I can see the answer is no. Cambridge did defend him initially but there is clearly other evidence none of us are party to and questions to be answered about his recent outputs (again I think the PhD is almost irrelevant given his later standing).

If his research is top drawer then none of the rest really matters. But there's a noticeable silence around that. For now at least.

For me the sense in which he was the perfect victim is because he told enough provable lies to make those who should have been his defenders wary enough to avoid putting their heads above the parapet. That applies to his friends, colleagues and previous institutions.

Sorry, I meant a link to someone reporting the media camped outside his home. This is AI generated rubbish. Please can you provide a proper link?

Agree with everything you've said. It's just common sense.

A single student who was both at Roehampton and Cambridge? And it is irrelevant how ‘good’ his teaching was if he didn’t actually turn up to do it.

It has the names of people who talked about it in the media which you can easily look up. There’s several articles and videos about it with words from JA’s colleagues and friends who were there. In fact I’m surprised you haven’t seen it, especially the stuff around how the media has been stationed outside of his house and harassing his family even after his death as that’s been well reported.

There’s like no nuance with some of you people. It’s like everything is black and white. We know for a fact some students didn’t like him. He know for a fact that many did like him. People aren’t one-dimensional. I bet you have people who like you and people who don’t and they would probably have different things to say about you. That’s normal when you’re a human being.

Novara Media is an openly left-wing, activist-oriented digital media organisation.

It has a explicit ideological stance meaning the commentary and framing carry a strong partisan bias.

Just thought as it had been mentioned above I should point this out to people that don't know already.

That’s as may be, but the interviews with Hindi Andrews, who visited JA before he died, are quite explicit in saying that there were media outside of JA house. And there was significant criticism about leaking JA’s address to the media.

If the "media has been stationed outside of his house and harassing his family even after his death" that's not evidence of the media harassing Arday that's the media harassing his family after his death. Sorry but I'm dubious that the media even found Arday before his death let alone hounded him. So far I have seen no evidence that the media were camped outside Arday's house. It wasn't mentioned before his death.

Just pointing out who which digital media it was, not passing comment on anything else

It is totally up to readers if they take into account the statements made by JA's friends.

I do think it is possible the press had started to stake out his house because the story had blow up more and they often do this for a few days if a story goes big. Famous or wealth people often just bugger off abroad for a bit to avoid this (look at Fergie). However JA's friends or colleagues are not likely to be the best source of information one can imagine they believed everything he said before etc. It is a mixed bag really and overall I personally don't think very important to the story or the reason he killed himself if I am honest.

Cambridge issued statements in his support , offered counselling and increased security, and until his last week, individual academics were going to see him in his home in London!

Was that widely publicised?

Throwing this in here because I found it an interesting allegation.

The source is the New York Times, but I can't give the link because I get sent by email a couple of their top stories each day as part of the "wordle/games" package. They had an article today about Arday, in which they wrote about Arday being employed by Cambridge in the first place and whether it ought to have been discovered at interview that his CV/resumé/autobiography might not hang together completely. It was an interview with someone called Mara Hvistendahl, "who’s been reporting on Arday’s life, his death and the fallout at Cambridge."

"But that back story wasn’t true?

"Parts of it were true, and parts of it really stretched belief and turned out to be lies and exaggerations. He said he didn’t speak before he was 11 and he didn’t read before he was 18. In our reporting, we found people who knew him as a child, including a speech professional who worked with him, who contradicted this.

"Could the hiring committee have realized this?

"The short answer is yes. We don’t have full insight into how those deliberations went, but the nine people on the hiring committee were experts on things like how people learn and develop.

"At least one key member of the committee was a child psychiatrist who had himself done research on autism. He was arguably in a position to understand that Arday’s claims really had no precedent in medical literature."

Emphasis mine. Implication, that they were so keen to be woke and hire a young, disabled, etc etc black man that they ignored anything that might have militated against his being employed. Which would be very shocking indeed.

Sorry to post and run; I have a lot on today and may not get back before the thread is full. I just thought that might be worth looking at and bearing in mind while considering what was going on. I hadn't seen the allegation about the autism researcher on that committee anywhere else.

Cambridge University offered support but it was by far lacking. Colleagues visited JA because they wanted to, not because it was part of a formal process. And many of them have lamented about the lack of support from Cambridge. I know Cambridge has a mental health and wellbeing policy but JA was a particular case. We aren’t just talking about mental health, we are talking about autism and other medical conditions. Perhaps their process would’ve been enough for someone who needed mental health support, but JA was particularly vulnerable and had complex needs. It simply wasn’t enough. And if you’re going to parade JA around knowing about his complex needs you should atleast have the support in place for him should he need it. This whole thing has massively damaged Cambridge’s reputation.

Here is an archive version of the New York Times article. As per usual the NYT journalism is impeccable & will have been properly fact checked.

When did Cambridge first find out about potential problems in Arday’s work?
Almost immediately. Cambridge was first alerted to possible plagiarism three months after he was hired. They didn’t deal with these allegations swiftly, which isn’t unusual. What is unusual is how actively they defended Arday. They said he was facing several issues at the time he wrote those papers that had influenced his work, including direct and indirect racism.

Cambridge then got alerted by a very respected academic industry publication to issues in Arday’s doctoral thesis. But the university continued to defend him, saying at one point that he was the victim of a vile campaign.
So these latest allegations didn’t come out of nowhere. They’ve been circulating inside Cambridge for three years. Cambridge could have easily done its own investigation, but it didn’t.

https://archive.ph/LqX17

I accept your apology 😂

What “complex needs” and medical problems are you referring to? We don’t know if any of them are true because there were so many lies. Do you mean the brain tumour, the testicular cancer, the epilepsy, the muteness, the stroke?

Anyway, whether he had zero conditions Cambridge should have supported him while he was in their employment rather than lied about genuine issues with his prior work and claims. They did him absolutely no favours.

However, why didn’t the people unofficially visiting him do something? Some of them have said he was in a bad way, had lost weight, etc, so why didn’t they do more to get him help?