Our friends at the Good Law Project

[Gymnopedie]

I know this doesn't belong here but given the bollocks from the GLP about issues that do I thought people might be interested.

It's about Professor Jason Arday, a Cambridge academic. The story started when there was a claim that large chunks of his PhD thesis had been taken from another (sometimes not even changing typo errors) published a few years earlier. His justification is that he's autistic and his way of coping is 'mimicry'.

Sine then his many claims about his charity work, fundraising and physical exploits have come under increasing scrutiny - much from the Guardian - and are unravelling fast. He's having to backtrack and 'explain' a lot. He's claimed to have been on a TV programme that he never was and it was chronologically impossible for him to be on it. He has claimed a lot of nasty harassment but has no evidence of it, no photos, no messages, and didn't report any of it to the police. (Well he claims he did once, but the police have no record of it and the story doesn't stack up.)

What does the GLP have to do with it? They're organising an open letter in his support, claiming that there is nothing to see here except that he's a victim of vile racism.

Support for a left wing cause that bears no relationship to the facts? Where have I heard that before?

Charity casts doubts on volunteering record of Cambridge professor (The Telegraph via MSN)

Playbooks, plagiarism and a pig’s head: new claims surrounding a star Cambridge professor | University of Cambridge | The Guardian

Glasgow University denies Jason Arday visiting prof claim | The Herald

Ah, JoMo. Never knowingly missing an opportunity to put himself front and centre under the guise of “standing up for the marginalised and oppressed”

It's a really shitty outcome, especially for his kids.

This from the Royal Society's webpage. They haven't taken the trouble to get their tenses consistent yet:

Jason Arday was Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Education. His appointment made him the youngest-ever Black academic to hold a Professorship at Cambridge and one of the youngest academics ever appointed to a Professorial Chair in Oxbridge’s history. He was previously Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Glasgow in the School of Education and Associate Professor in Sociology at Durham University in the Department of Sociology. At Durham he was also Deputy Executive Dean for People and Culture in the Faculty of Social Science and Health.

Jason is a Trustee of the Runnymede Trust, the UK's leading race equality thinktank, and the British Sociological Association (BSA). He sits on the Centre for Labour and Social Studies (CLASS) National Advisory Panel and the NHS Race and Health Observatory Academic Reference Group. Jason is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts (RSA) and sits on the ITV Cultural Advisory Council.
[...]

Jason was named as one of the most influential people of 2023 by The Independent and The Guardian Newspapers and is listed the 4th Most Influential Person with a disability in the UK on The Shaw Disability Power 100. He has also had the honour of being the Guest Editor for the BBC's Today Programme.

It wasn't just his personal position. He was given influence far beyond that.

But instead students who complained or asked for a different lecturer were called racist and told they had white privilege.
The universities knew exactly how poor his academic work was yet they all kept protecting him "against a campaign of racism". If just 1 of the universities had actually investigated him properly then none of this would have happened. Instead they just went with the critical race theory bs that says that any complaint about a black man in any context is automatically racism. Which btw is a racist philosophy.

Yes, I hadn't realised he was a father until yesterday.

@Hoardasurass Instead they just went with the critical race theory bs that says that any complaint about a black man in any context is automatically racism. Which btw is a racist philosophy.

It makes it so much harder for those of us actually trying to hold the line against racism at work, in the pubs, at BBQs, online...

Re Arday's children, I won't post names or links, but they are easy to google. I was horrified to see that his daughter must have just received her A level results - what bloody awful timing and I really hope she got what she needs and is off to do something that will give her a chance to build a good life. It's beyond interesting that her LinkedIn says she aims to be a psychiatrist.

What a crap situation for them. Just utterly shit. I hope they can get some support from a neutral caring source.

I'm not going to go looking as it seems deeply inappropriate but I'm not sure if that is correct about his daughter and A level results. I recall a fairly recent interview in which JA said she was 20 and at university. Obviously it is terrible for his children whatever stage of life they are at but it would be wrong if this tragic event gave rise to yet more sensational stories.

I don't suppose JoMo will engage in any kind of self-reflection, but I think the letter from the GLP supporting Arday will have made things worse rather than better. Fairly obviously, it fanned the flames and helped to keep the story going. But more significantly, once it became clear that the allegations against Arday were well-founded - and even worse than originally thought - signatories started to withdraw their names. Losing the support of people, including senior Cambridge academics, after they had come out batting for you, would surely have been worse than not having their support in the first place.

I wouldn’t expect anything else from him.

I saw the report on the 9am Sky news, and I thought it was so biased that I emailed a complaint to [email protected] - the first time I've ever done that.

I objected to Sky taking sides in what is an ongoing controversial news story, and that although the bereaved family could be excused for making allegations of 'a campaign of misinformation', Sky news had no such excuse.

One of the things I commented on was the lack of support for a 'brother journalist' at the Times Higher Ed, Jack Grove, who had approached JA in a responsible, professional way and got Carter Ruck and the police instead of a reasonable response.

Sky is usually fairly middle-of-the-road about controversial issues, so it's surprising that they have gone so far over to the 'hounded to death although cleared of accusations of plagiarism' line.

It's a terrible tragedy for his poor family, and as in the case of Anne Widdicombe there is normally a period during which no ill - well not too much anyway - is spoken of the dead, with phrases like 'controversial' 'respected though not universally agreed with' 'a divisive figure' etc.

That should apply in both directions, not just 'not speaking ill of the dead' but also not speaking ill of journalists like Jack Grove who were just doing their job, not engaging in a 'campaign of misinformation'.

One of the things I commented on was the lack of support for a 'brother journalist' at the Times Higher Ed, Jack Grove, who had approached JA in a responsible, professional way and got Carter Ruck and the police instead of a reasonable response.

Quite right. Because Grove could easily have felt suicidal as a result of a Carter-Ruck letter - those letters are designed to frighten people.

I can only assume that Sky is taking the line it is because it's cross it didn't break the plagiarism story (or any of the follow-up stories) itself.

I agree. Grove only found out about the police investigation when it was dropped, but what if he’d been interviewed and questioned at the beginning? Suspended from work pending the outcome?

Then there were the students accused of racism for criticising Arday. What if that had been taken further?

Those sorts of things hanging over someone also drive people to suicide. In fact, IIRC there was a youngish guy (entirely unrelated to this, as far as I know) a while back who killed himself after having been accused of racism. The impact of Arday’s behaviour on others doesn’t seem to have been taken into consideration.

It’s cry bullying. Arday was obviously vulnerable but it doesn’t mean that vulnerable people can’t harm others.

True.
The media is reporting a genuine human tragedy, which it should do with decorum and respect, but there is also a huge news story about potential deception and fraud and acquisition of money and status on a spectacular scale, which will restart after an appropriate period of restraint.

So it's unwise for news outlets to pre-judge that by taking the 'vulnerable man hounded to death' line before all the facts of the case are revealed.

I think what will happen is that people criticising Arday will be expected to restrain themselves, rightly or wrongly, and people, like Maugham, wanting to fan the flames and blame people he doesn’t like, despite the GLP’s own dubious role, will get stuck in. I don’t think anyone can be expected to take that without defending themselves.

I am reminded of how certain sections of the progressive left got very angry with the Sun for “hounding” Huw Edwards. Strange how they all went terribly quiet when the full facts about his crimes emerged.

Professor Sir Simon Baron-Cohen was interviewed on the Today programme. He said he had spoken to Arday yesterday but it turned out when he said 'spoke' he meant it in the modern sense of 'exchanged some WhatsApp messages'. Arday's last message was a voice note saying he couldn't cope & saw no way forward. If my friend had left me a voice note like that I would have called him on the phone or more likely called round in person not just ignored it.

Unfortunately Nick Robinson didn't ask the obvious question as to why Baron-Cohen first signed the GLP petition in support of Arday then had his signature removed. A very public disavowal by someone he thought was a friend would hardly have improved Arday's fragile mental health.

That GLP petition was staggeringly ill-judged. JA was championed and had his cause promoted, and then the GLP abruptly dropped him. It was monstrously irresponsible. It would have been so much better for the GLP to keep its beak out of it.

GLP gonna GLP

@MrPrettyDamnCosmic Arday's last message was a voice note saying he couldn't cope & saw no way forward. If my friend had left me a voice note like that I would have called him on the phone or more likely called round in person not just ignored it.

With the huge caveat that we don't know all the facts, that would certainly be a failure of care for any half decent clinical psychologist, let alone a world-renowned one.

Another thing Simon Baron-Cohen mentioned was that he had gone with Arday to LJMU earlier in the year regarding his PhD. The outcome seemed to be they all decided that there was nothing to see & the PhD was awarded correctly.

Interestingly SB-C also mentioned autism, language delay & learning differences (I assume this is what we used to call learning difficulties) that he was a vulnerable adult needing adjustment all the way.

GLP have absolutely torched their reputation on the trans issue. I hope JoMo thinks supporting his trans kids in this way is worth it. Far too many of the British public have now peaked re the trans issue that he’s left looking ridiculous. I really hope his kids haven’t harmed themselves with unwise medical interventions.

The interview with Prof Baron-Cohen is here, from 1:34. He states that Jason Arday was a "...vulnerable child, a vulnerable teenager and a vulnerable adult, so he needed and deserved safeguarding and support and reasonable adjustment every step of the way".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0030c4z