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.

The police acted on his report.

I’m not an academic so forgive me if my assumption is wrong, however I thought for internationally renowned universities the emphasis for professors was very much on their own research, as opposed to the teaching of undergraduates . Hence the critical role of his apparently plagiarised doctoral research would have been pivotal in the selection process. As for the role played by the embellishments, only Cambridge could quantify.

Yes this, I said as much on another thread.

There is a victim narrative around this man so people are pearl clutching after he took his own life

They wouldnt do the same for Lance Armstrong (as the example was on the other thread) for example

Other examples brought up in that thread, Greg Wallace for example? He was hounded in the press after what he did, played the victim card unsuccessfully with autism. Silently went away.

But people seem to be suggesting that committing suicide makes you a victim regardless of your actions. Are you saying this isn’t true?

I live in the most expensive city in the Uk and don't earn nowhere near as much. I also have a sick cat that relies of expensive monthly medication. Why do you keep making it seem that it's OK to lie?

Should I just add a few PhDs to my CV and apply for Arday's old job? According to the students he was doing a shit job and there had been complaints. Maybe because he wasn't up to the job he'd lied to get. I'll probably be shit at it as well... but to lie through my teeth is OK because 'politicians do it all the time'.... Arday should have become an MP then.

A narcissist who specialised in studying the sociology of racism in education in men called Jason and labelled any critic racist, involved the police, falsely claimed to have been the subject of hate crimes and through his actions has reduced the standing of black people in academia, and killed himself because his whole identity was based on a lie? I feel sorry for his family, but I don't consider him a victim.

I agree with all you say, it is a terrible tragedy.

Why was he living in London?

Why didn’t his family step in? It’s easy to blame the university but he had other people close to him who could have done something.

You think that comment is clever and appropriate? I pity you

Yes, and this was tried in the Arday case as well. Not 'I can't stand underwear because of me autism', but again label-waving being attempted as an excuse. 'I copied all this work 'cos me autism'. Pfft, I say.

As far as I’m aware, and my PhD certainly wasn’t, a PhD thesis is not generally put through software. So unless they’ve changed it. Either way it may not have been common practice when JA submitted his and I know friends who have recently submitted and theirs weren’t either. The people reviewing the PhDs are generally the best in the field, so you’d expect them to be familiar with the literature on topic. So if he wasn’t caught out, LJMU has to bear some of the blame too. I mean people are human. Sometimes you write down notes in a book, revisit them later on and think it was your own words and then type them up (I’ve seen that happen before). At the end of the day we will never know what happened because he’s dead and can’t tell us, but he did say he had made mistakes in his early career, so he did acknowledge it although he was cleared of plagiarism.

I think the way the entire situation was handled for Jason Arday was disgusting.

Not only Cambridge University ( shame on them ) but also the press.
Despite all the tokenistic airing of the ' importance of mental health ' the truth is that what really matters is a cheap bit of sensationalism at anyone's expense. Nice juicy story ( crock of shit ) to sell stories in the Mail or tickle the fancy of those on the right . If the right is what you would call Reform and those of that ilk.
Poor man and his poor family. He did nothing wrong and has literally been hounded to his death.
If we were serious about suicide prevention in this country this kind of thing could not happen. Clearly we are not and as someone who works in mental health care I despair.

I don’t personally know JA, so I don’t know. Maybe because it’s not a massive commute to Cambridge and that’s potentially where his wife worked and where he grew up. What does it matter? It’s not like Cambridge is a lot cheaper.

He "admitted" it only after he got caught though.

Then he effectively tarred all autistic people by saying his plagiarism was because he "learned by mimicry", to account for (again) being caught wholesale copy-pasting large parts of his thesis.

Then he called the police to go after someone who started asking perfectly reasonable questions.

And so on.

Minimising all of it as mere oopsy! "mistakes" when the stakes were so high is doing a serious injustice to those he impacted. Where is their sympathy and empathy and making good?

No but he is the 1st one who was an DEI poster person whos back story was held up as something to be praised and it was all lies even his CV was full of lies and Cambridge didn't even check it out ofcourse this was going to be huge when it inevitably blew up.
So if you want to blame anyone apart for Arday himself blame everyone who promoted him above his ability and unquestionably believed his lies and promoted them not those who said hold on a minute this doesn't sound true

He didn’t make up his PhD? What are you talking about? And comparing having a sick cat to the expense of raising two children in this economy is wild.

I'm shocked and saddened how people can call this man a conman and liar almost as though he deserved to die. He was a vulnerable man with a disability, was he perfect - no, probably made some mistakes. However, there are children who will never have their father walk them down the aisle, be at their graduation, meet their future children etc. Have some humanity and compassion. The media coverage of this has been outrageous, this could have been internally dealt with at Cambridge.

He was divorced from his wife years ago, apparently because he was so fixated on his career, according to exerts from his memoir.

@SerafinasGoose that is appalling. Were the plagiarists male by any chance or doesn't that come into it? Just wondering if it's also a 'boy's club' sort of thing?

I'm sorry. I've probably had too much Prosecco.

Yes, this. It’s like you have to be perfect to be considered a victim. He didn’t live a perfect life, but he sure was a victim.

Those are two very separate things no-one has (as far as ive seen) said he deserved to die but he is a proven liar this does not change because he has died by his own hand

If committing suicide wipes your slate clean and makes you the victim regardless of your actions then surely this should hold true more broadly. Arday was a fraud, a scammer, who deceived people to make money and gain adulation and used accusations of racism to protect himself from scrutiny. He didn’t care about the students he ripped off, the academic dreams he destroyed, the academics whose intellectual property he stole, the journalist who he tried to give a criminal record, the research base he undermined or the outcome of disseminating fake research.

No, people are saying that hounding a man because he lied and plagiarised makes them a victim. He did nothing illegal. He didn't hurt anyone. And that the media and social media outcry was far beyond what was reasonable. Read the comment on here about how many articles were published AFTER his resignation. It was disproportionate.

I think you are sick to compare the two.