Northernlightsss
Problem is with your complete ignorance of this issue (let alone the ability to understand it) is there are different violations of plagiarism between the two cases (one being significantly worse) AND even if there wasn'y why did we hear nothing about the white guy where there was a huuuge media witch hunt for the black guy?
Leaving aside the 'complete ignorance' and 'ability to understand' swipes at the beginning of this -
Anybody who has kept up with the topic knows about famous plagiarism scandals involving white people - writers, academics, politicians, round-the-world-yachtsmen - which have lost them their reputations, their jobs, their lives.
Just because you are not aware of plagiarism scandals involving white people, doesn't mean that they don't exist.
If a first year undergrad plagiarised an essay the way Jason Arday plagiarised parts of his PhD thesis [I take it you accept the published evidence Northernlightsss?] it would be fail and the student would be required to go back to learning what plagiarism is, why it matters, and how to avoid it by proper use of referencing, footnotes, bibliographies etc etc.
If a student has difficulties understanding what plagiarism is and what's wrong with it - I think JA's plagiarism has been 'explained' by his autism ? - then extra support and guidance should be given to that student to understand that plagiarism is unacceptable, but also bad for them educationally because it's better to read, digest and incorporate what you've read into your own writing, than copy and paste other people's words and ideas undigested.
For somebody to carry their lack of understanding of/cavalier attitude to plagiarism all the way through to their doctoral thesis, and for the plagiarism to be noted but excused, is shocking.
When that person then turns up as a feted Professor in one of the most prestigious universities in the world, questions are bound to be asked.
As for the non-academic aspects of JA's life - the media didn't have to do much witch-hunting or dirt-digging to come up with stories which stretch credulity, did they?
He wasn't shy or retiring about his life outside academia, including his sporting achievements. He wrote a whole book exposing his life, for which he got a large sum of money from Simon and Schuster, and it looks like it was the advance publicity around the book that provoked the 'He says he did what??'
reactions, and then the old questions about the integrity of his academic work resurfaced.
When questions were put to JA, not as part of a racist right wing gutter press witch-hunt, but in a responsible manner by a respected educational journalist, instead of taking the opportunity to address the questions calmly and honestly, Carter Ruck and the Met were set on the journalist to silence him - successfully, unfortunately.
There's no doubt that racists are crowing about the downfall of a Black person for their own nefarious reasons.
That doesn't invalidate investigating what I'm sure you will agree, Northernlightsss, is a spectacular academic scandal, which would still be spectacular if the person involved was White, had a similar back-story, already had questions to answer about their academic integrity, and had just written a tell-all book making so many dubious claims about their life outside academia.