Dr. Jason Arday, a former Cambridge professor, passed away on Friday. Arday had been the victim of what can only be described as a national smear campaign, led by the British press and British academia. Arday had been the youngest Black professor in Cambridge’s history, but he resigned from his position at Cambridge on August 5th, less than a week before his memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things was released in the US. By the time his memoir was released on August 11th, Arday was headline news across the UK, as every single red-top tabloid and newspaper carried articles and commentary pieces calling him a fabulist, a liar, a “DEI hire” and “the real racist.” All because he was a Black, autistic man who spoke about race in the UK.
Jason Arday, the former Cambridge University scholar whose remarkable rise to stardom was followed by a rapid fall from grace in recent weeks, has died, his family said on Friday.
“Jason was subjected to a campaign of sustained abuse” in the years since he accepted a role at Cambridge, his family wrote in a statement. “The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and who always wanted to see the best in everyone.”
The Metropolitan Police of London said that an ambulance was called on Friday afternoon to a South London residence connected to Mr. Arday after a report that a man there had been found unresponsive. The man was pronounced dead at the scene, the police said, without confirming his identity, in keeping with British police practice. The death was being “treated as unexpected” but was not believed to be suspicious, the police said.
“We are desperately saddened to hear this tragic news,” Professor Deborah Prentice, the Cambridge vice-chancellor, said in a statement. “Our heartfelt sympathies go to Jason Arday’s family and friends at this incredibly difficult time.”
Mr. Arday, who was 41, grew up in a working-class quarter of South London, the child of Ghanaian immigrants. Early on, he was identified as having learning difficulties. He wrote in his memoir that he could not speak until age 11 and could not read until age 18, charting a remarkable trajectory from nonverbal preteen to Ph.D.
Mr. Arday, who had written and lectured on racism in higher education, became Cambridge’s youngest Black professor in 2023 when the university hired him for a prestigious post, an established chair of education at the school’s Jesus College.
Last month, a public firestorm over Mr. Arday’s career erupted after a blog post accused him of plagiarism in his dissertation and embellishing his personal story. It was written by a scholar known for work suggesting that Black people were genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than white people.
Scrutiny intensified ahead of the publication of Mr. Arday’s memoir on Tuesday by Simon & Schuster, as journalists found more inconsistencies in his story. He resigned from Cambridge last week.
Allegations about Mr. Arday’s work circulated within Cambridge for years, but the institution disregarded repeated warnings about possible duplication in Mr. Arday’s work, according to the academic integrity site Retraction Watch. The elite university initially defended Mr. Arday but in a letter sent to faculty on Tuesday promised an independent investigation of his hiring and called the case “an aberration” and “troubling.”
Some faculty had supported Mr. Arday. Others signed an open letter questioning the university’s handling of the allegations and criticizing it for “crafting a media narrative focusing on his youth, his race, and his transformative potential.”
“It was written by a scholar known for work suggesting that Black people were genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than white people.” My God. And no one can say that the British media didn’t know what they were doing either – they were warned by Arday’s friends, colleagues and family that Arday was in a bad place. The media continued to relentlessly abuse Arday. Immediately following the news of Arday’s passing, many in the British media pointed out the racist consistency of the British press and how they treat prominent Black people, from Arday to Jude Bellingham to Marcus Rashford to Meghan, the Duchess of Sussex. Even taking race out of the equation, the British media ran this exact same play on Caroline Flack, a white woman.
Screencaps courtesy of Channel 4 News video.
Such a sad story, how many more people will unalive themselves after having their lives ruined by the british press? And I say press not just the tabloids because the ‘serious’ papers did this too.
And they are now deleting articles and links so they know what they did was wrong.
Even if what they aaid its true there are lots of white professors who don’t receive this much scrutiny and hatred.
Exactly this. No academic has had their life put under such scrutiny. Not a one. They attacked this guy relentlessly, day after day, for who knows how long. It was cruel. It was wrong. And it was racist to the nth degree.
The Fail was leading in the campaign against him – I don’t know anything about the allegations but regardless the media went all in with the abuse. He addressed the plagiarism early in his career saying that it was him mirroring due to his autism and that its rife within academia.
Its all so sad and could have been dealt with better by the University – they failed him. Cambridge could have shut the press down and they didn’t.
I was following it. 225 roughly abusive articles, the main campaign by the telegraph and the times. They’ve all been deleting tweets, posts and articles and have their bots blaming woke politics, calling him retarded.
A well known British author wrote many abusive tweets including asking can he even read. She’s a best selling author.
The main point is even if there was a credible plagiarism allegation, numerous professors have been sacked – some not even – for plagiarism but it never made the press. Like ones sacked for sexual abuse and rape. Strangely, only he got 225 articles in a matter of weeks.
There’s a petition for yet another inquiry but given the pms pathetic response, wr know nothing can happen. The right wing own the uk. This abuse will continue unabated.
Can you share the name of the author? I’d like to make sure I never read their books!
Who is the author? It’s not JKR by any chance?
Name and shame! There’s no need for a blind item.
The one that I found is Alison Pearson – and the stuff she wrote about him is terrible.
DK and CatGotMyTongue, it was Allison Pearson.
My Black autistic self has time today. Dr. Jason Arday was Black, autistic and cleared of any wrongdoing in March, regarding the plagiarism accusation.
Universities deal with plagiarism accusations regularly, as internal matters. White people credibly accused or plagiarism never experience 249 articles in 22 days, continuing after they resign while publicly stating they’ve experienced more than they can bear.
What I have been taught in academia is stolen, over-simplified and distorted knowledge and wisdom of the global majority and Black scholars, passed of as white knowledge.
The Byline Times has revealed “that with the behind-the-scenes support of Peter Thiel — Trump backer and co-founder of the controversial data-mining and surveillance giant Palantir Technologies — Orr has used Cambridge University as a recruitment ground to bring students into a hard-right, theocratic political project aimed at bolstering talent in Farage’s party.” Zionist eugenics professor Nathan Cofnas at the University of Ghent is a key figure in the hounding of Dr. Jason Arday.
This was a lynching.
White institutions will never be safe for us as black people. My nephew recently received a doctorate from one of the best schools in the world and when he was looking at career paths, my father warned him away from staying in academia. Mostly it was about the state of the tenure system but it was also because of the way white institutions treat black academics.
Thanks for covering this. I have never been so ashamed to be british (small b). This was a despicable campaign by the racist media in the UK because a black man had the temerity to forget his place and rise above where certain academics and the press want to keep people of colour. This has happened too many times, this man was basically lynched in 2026 by a press which has no limits on how low it will sink. These stories were in the best interests of NO ONE. This man hurt NO ONE. Yet the lies and pain and deception by the likes of Farage and Johnson go unchecked. I’m disgusted, and I’m sad.
Very well said, Jane.
Amerika isn’t safe for black people either. Just look at Nolan Wells’ case. Racists are emboldened bc of evil leadership which somehow makes lynchings of any sort allowable. Disgusting, tragic and appalling.
How many people have to take their lives before the government in Britain rein in the tabloids and hold them accountable for this? Just heartbreaking they literally targeted this man until he died.. over an accusation of plagiarism but AMW who there is plenty of evidence against that shows he was a prominent purchaser of Epstein’s trafficked women and children gets the “mental health concern” articles from the tabloids as they ignore his crimes..
This is a tragedy. As soon as the news of his death came out some outlets like the Times and TalkTV deleted a lot of articles and videos about him. They knew what they were doing and have blood on their hands. This story serves as a reminder that Harry did the right thing by deciding to leave the UK and that there is no changing the British without serious reform.
The far-right led British press, from the traditional Telegraph/Mail/Spectator to far-right wannabes like the Guardian and Independent, have been desperately searching for ways to replicate the US take-down of DEI and “wokeism” for years.
They had found the perfect Trojan horse with Jason Arday and Cambridge. Flawed academics and flawed talent management processes are incredibly common and usually receive little press coverage (see William O’Reilly), except of course when they involve a successful black person. Then its knives out and wall to wall screaming, discrediting of an entire ethnicity (platforming outspoken racists like Nathan Cofnas), and attempting to throw out talent policies that try to level the playing field, all because of one isolated case.
This whole thing was gold for the far-right media: it pushed their message, whipped up a frenzy and showered them with clicks and $$$. Almost all their journalists jumped on the bandwagon, digging into every aspect of Jason Arday’s life and coming out with lurid (and mostly unproven) allegations and insults every couple of hours, just like they do with Meghan Sussex.
In some ways, Jason Arday became the new Meghan Sussex, for a couple of weeks, before he partially disarmed the British media by taking his own life. Just like they’d been hoping they’d do with Meghan, knowing that even deceased they could still cash in with their “Meghan broke royal protocol in 2019” style stories, even more so as she wouldn’t be around to deliver any rebuttal.
Harry and Meghan managed to put a bit of distance between themselves and the baying British media, which is why they’re both still alive and thriving.
Ultimately I think this Jason Arday saga has exposed the British media, and the part of the public which avidly consume whatever they stuff down their throats, for what they really are.
Amanda Platell also tried to compare Meghan and Dr. Arday in one of her stupid articles because if there is a way to drag her into this, the racist British media will do it.
Amanda Platell Weaponises One Black Academic’s Fall to Smear Meghan Sussex – Feminegra https://share.google/FyW3Y99kRacv6M2kh
She wrote this nasty opinion piece a week ago making it clear that she expects black people to know their place and insulting both “Megs and Jase” as getting above themselves !? I hope she’s ashamed of herself in the wake of that man’s pitiful death. Nobody who “writes” for the Daily Outrage is entitled to look down on any one else. They happily pull others down to make coin: how low can you go? On the other hand two weeks ago Sir Simon Baron Cohen, a Cambridge expect on autism, asked for humanity to be shown towards Jason Arday who was already on the floor and yet he was still being kicked by the press. Thank you Simon and Diane Abbott and others who offered Jason help and support during this ordeal. Please remember all the courageous people who stood up for Jason against the infamously vicious BM!
It sounds like the UK has MAGA without Trump. The Labour party better fight this now or they will be fighting it at the ballot box for years to come.
Someone on Bluesky called the UK “posh Mississippi”. It’s really true. Racial and class hierarchy are defining features, not bugs.
A few years ago, post COVID though, I saw someone talking about how, in England, if you removed London salaries from the calculation, the average English salary was like $30k a year. Whatever the exact number was, it was comparable to Mississippi’s average wage. I have never forgotten that.
@Lucy: a June 2026 article in The Atlantic stated the average GDP in the UK is less than the average GDP in Mississippi, which is & pretty much always has been the poorest state in the US.
Amanda plates, Jeremy vine , just to name a few and their sport of abuse on a daily basis to people like Jason and Meghan has to end . This can’t continue . There is real harm and love ones at the end of this abusive, racist smear campaign. They are like a wild bunch of holligan , no rules and no governance and they do whatever they want with zero consequences and accountability. My prayers are with his family with his family. I keep that that he has children who now have to grow up without their dad because the British media is beyond vulgar and evil
Misan Harriman has posted on Instagram that even after Jason’s death the British tabloids were outside the family home harassing those visiting, they even posted the street name. Just when you think it couldn’t get worse, it does.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DcEFfU2sGSD/?igsh=M2tsOXV1bzUxNGti
Doxxing a grieving family after causing death. The British media in a nutshell.
Feminegra has published several opinion pieces on the hounding of Jason Arday including that detail, that even in grief and shock, his family despite asking to be left alone have been “door stopped!”
Labour MP Bell Ribeiro-Addy has since criticised journalists for gathering outside the grieving family’s home, raising critical questions about how journalistic coverage should go.
He lied about everything. Having cancer, running a marathon on a broken leg, not being about to read or write until age 18; have had a professorship at schools who had never heard of him, a nonexistent master’s degree, the earlier biography that was never published; the 30 marathons in 35 days; the racist incident with a pig’s head that never happened; the claim that he took part in the TV series 7 Up; the claim that he was non-verbal until the age of 11’; the £5million he allegedly raised for charity, it goes on and on.
It’s too bad he’s dead. But he lied and lied and lied about everything. Worse than George Santos, even.
… but not quite as bad as… Trump. Last I checked, his lie count had exceeded tens of thousands, including lying about winning an election.
And unlike Jason Arday, Trump is a US president impacting the entire planet.
It’s amazing how comfortable some people are with double standards and hypocrisy.
Trump has nothing to do with this.
It’s amazing how people can’t stick to the subject and instead prefer straw men.
And yet George Santos was not bullied into suicide by unrelenting press coverage, and he kept his congressional seat.
Santos was all over the news and he didn’t keep his seat – he was expelled by Congress, convicted of identity theft and wire fraud and sentenced to prison. Trump commuted his sentence, but not the conviction, so he’s still a convicted felon.
Was it established that he lied? Or was it that his claims simply couldn’t be proven?
Maybe he was a grandiose yapper. Still does not make him an incompetent researcher.
In 2018 I completed a masters degree. Professors were being told to run papers through some scanner to find plagiarism. As many papers do mine contained quotes each with the appropriate reference to the source. I was born in 1982, we wrote by hand and I had a word processor with a 2” x 3” screen for the start of high school. I assured my professor that she must report back that the scanner is flawed. I wrote and edited and rewrote my entire paper myself. I even wrote the outline by hand and sent a picture of the outline. The professor did not reply and did not request another paper and I did receive an A-
I’m sharing this because even the earliest iterations of this tech were flawed.
I’m deeply saddened about the hate and ignorance spewed onto this gentle soul.
I’m saddened he didn’t move and start over somewhere else. Just sad.
He was cleared of plagiarism. It turned out to have been poor referencing regarding one sentence (or two sentences, depending on the source). But when people hear “plagiarism” they immediately assume that he copied an entire body of work, and the newspapers, radio and television programmes knew this and ran with it. And at no point did they announce that these were old allegations and that the professor had actually been cleared of any wrongdoing.
This was a deliberate, coordinated mass assault, or what I would call a public lynching.
It’s interesting how they chose to ignore other public figures who have constructed back stories out of whole cloth or give them scant 5 minutes then move on, while this went on for weeks. And although they are cleaning up their timelines, the media still seem to be hounding the family.
Yep. It’s gross and awful that people are taking he lied about things to he plagiarized his papers to well he must not have been truthful about his upbringing.
All discourse aside, it is tragic that he felt he had to end his life.
So alleged plagiarism and exaggeration now merit the death penalty?
No one deserves to be hounded to death over academic matters. This was vicious racism on full display.
I’m absolutely stunned at how emotionally invested in attacking this man some of the commentators on here are. And how they keep moving the goalposts when presented with evidence that doesn’t fit their narrative. Very disturbing.
@ BRASSY REBEL People are revealing their racist selves. These are the people who would ask what a lynching victim did to deserve the hanging and mutilation. But they can’t come up with an example of a confirmed, rather than suspected white man academic plagiarist, or the many confirmed white fraudsters that they would claim deserved this specific treatment or outcome.
I didn’t really know anything about the story before the last week or so, and I’m still trying to understand all of the parts and what is true and what isn’t – – what I did notice before this sad news was the speed and ferocity with which the attacks against him seemingly came out of nowhere and proliferated exponentially. It reminded me of how vicious the press became against the Duchess of Sussex. Such a terrible ending for this man and how awful for his loved ones and the students who looked up to him.
Meghan of Sussex was right and she and Harry were wise to pull up stakes and take their family far from that horrid place.
“If we are not all sadder and wiser, we damn well ought to be. The hunt became blood sport. The quarry dead, let us find gentler pursuits”
Andrew Marr 1997
Interestingly, the media has honed this culture of harassment into a sharper weapon in the years since that quote.
The coverage of this guy was excessive and sinister as it was so unwarranted and led by broadsheet papers, not just the red tops. Led by comment and opinion and insult, not facts. They have form for harassing targets to the point of death. One wonders what sort of society they want out of this corrosive media behaviour.
“It was written by a scholar known for work suggesting that Black people were genetically predisposed to be less intelligent than white people.”
It gets better – or worse – apparently the man who initiated the smear campaign had himself been SACKED by Cambridge. And the reports somehow magically failed to report that the gentleman had actually been cleared of the very thing they amplified: plagiarism.
I was heartened to see how many people were pointing out that despite concrete evidence in the form of photographs of Prince Andrew with trafficked minors and the traffickers, the British media did not spend a fraction of the time they spent hounding Dr. Arday to his death – instead, they printed articles saying how worried various bigwigs were about Andrew’s mental health.
I was also intrigued to see so many people pointing out that this is the result the media have been trying to bring about by continuing their smear campaign against The Duchess of Sussex, many praising Prince Harry for removing his wife from the UK. More and more people are connecting the dots. The UK media have done this to hundreds, if not thousands of people over the years. And it’s NOT “just the tabloids”. It’s all of them, save possibly Forces News and Byline Times. It’s the new form of lynching.
That vile Jeremy Vine, who gave self-pitying interviews not so long ago talking about how trolls wanted him to kill himself, has been one of the ringleaders in spreading these stories on this professor, just as he seldom goes a day without hosting a phone-in about M.
May they all reap what they have sown a thousand times over.
I think it’s pretty telling that people in this comment section are throwing around all kinds of things as if they are established facts instead of a googled collection of statements.
I’ve not followed this whole story in detail. It seemed weird when the story hinged on so many things we the public couldn’t really know. As a teenager I was interviewed a couple of times for different things. I was surprised by how the journalists interpreted my answers. It gave me a bit of a distaste for the media. I think journalists often do good investigative work, but I think we should always be critical of information and take our time before drawing conclusions.
I certainly would never wish any harm on someone … but some of the stories in his memoir sounded a bit off. I don’t know what is true as I haven’t done a deep dive into his life but it’s not a cut-and-dry as the media attacking him.
It’s sad that even in death he still does not get a pass. He is dead. What more do people want.
Poor man. I wish I had the opportunity to have supported him and told him it would be alright in the end.
Shame is one of the heaviest weights. And this man was shamed. Publicly.. Mercilessly. I remember Pamela Anderson saying she has lived with shame and that one word hit hard.
The Guardian wrote SO many articles about Ardlay. For what? Potential plagiarism and exaggeration?
The Guardian are the WORST. Total hypocrites. Masquerading as liberals while systematically joining the far right rags in their clickbait hate campaigns against any progressive or minority figure that ends up in public view. Half their journalists come from the far-right, like Marina Hyde, who worked for… the Sun.
They are utterly spineless and a complete smokescreen for populist racism.
Really, they are no better than the Daily Mail, and in my view are worse as they are shocking hypocrites.
Yes, they effectively ended his career. Who would touch him, after that kind of press coverage? Who would want to work with him? How would he secure funding?
To me, it’s incredible that someone like Jordan Petersen, Loser of all Losers, was able to continue to teach at UT while blathering about the repression of free speech (not remotely his area of expertise, which was CLINICAL PSYCHOLOGYYYYYYY) while someone like this man, actually working in his areas of specialty, was hounded out of academia and into the grave by bad press.
This is a situation where multiple things can be true and multiple players can be at fault for their bad actions. Arday’s claims in his own memoir are incredulous. Cambridge failed to do due diligence in reviewing his qualifications when hiring him and investigating concerns raised by students, faculty, etc.
While people were clearly upset about this, other people then used this as an opportunity to spread racist rhetoric. The British media pile-on made this whole situation worse. This whole situation will make things more difficult for people of color in academics. His death is sad because he was a person.
You pretty much summed up my take on the situation. He was in the wrong, and doubled down on his lies. But the media was also in the wrong for it’s relentless and frenzied coverage of the story. And the sad outcome, aside from the tragic loss of life, is that this situation will indeed make it harder for people of color in academia in the UK (and possibly the US as well).
Co-signing these comments. People are becoming incapable of critical thinking and assessment, and understanding nuance, including in this comment section. It is so much more complicated than given space for – the only concrete truths are that it is absolutely heartbreaking and our UK media is truly vile.
In my view,
1) Cambridge is at fault for not doing due diligence on his relevant academic positions/background/publications before his appointment
2) He could have been incredible in his work since he joined Cambridge (I don’t know his work as it is not my field so I can’t comment)
3) The media and individuals who contributed to the pile-on are wholly responsible for his death
4) He could have lied about a number of things to do with his career and life up to this point. We can’t know because the investigation by the university has not been allowed to complete yet.
5) White academics in this exact situation would be given grace until the facts were straight
6) The whole situation will definitely make it harder for current and future academics who are from neurodivergent and/or minority backgrounds
This is the exact outcome they wanted for Meghan and they are LIVID it didn’t happen. I am so thankful that her and Harry were able to get out and away from here.
Exactly how I feel, too.
This absolutely would happen to someone white, James Frey anyone???????
You are ridiculous. And James Frey is still publishing works, had his own publishing house I believe. Also Oprah apologized to him privately and then in public.
Calls for public inquiry into Jason Arday media ‘witchhunt’ – BBC News https://share.google/OG3tsdikff5uZpshE
Very shocked by this man’s death at only 41 and how one man is hounded for 22 days over an academic matter: how is any of that fair, proportionate or even appropriate? Daily Outrage are going to be crowing about millions of legal fees coming their way next week when Judge announces how much they can recoup from Harry and Elton and others. I sincerely hope given the revulsion many of us feel about their gleeful pursuit of Jason Arday, that they don’t start yet again claiming to be ” crusading journalist” and beacons of the free press!?
If Arday’s memoir will still be for sale soon, I hope his family can get some financial support from it.
A few years ago a black woman professor resigned as president of Harvard over plagiarism type charges. A rich white male alum was the ringleader of the attacks. Don’t remember details.
I hope his family sue the tabloid and that scholar for wrongful death
It’s important to remember that he was actually cleared of all plagiarism charges by the university that awarded him his PhD. So no, he was not a cheat or a liar.
Jason Arday: Professor’s family thank supporters as fundraiser donations pass £70,000 | UK News | Sky News https://share.google/PrYs46f0uZI93S8YI
I have just checked the GoFund Me page and over £100k has now been raised for Jason ‘s family and they have issued a touching statement thanking people for their support as they deal with the shocking loss of their loved one. There is still goodness, kindness and decency to be found as many who knew and liked Jason have contacted them to let know how much he meant to them as a person.
249 Articles in 22 Days. Jason Arday Is Dead at 41. | NewsCord Analysis https://share.google/ebgmfOD6C4MJEl2LI
Most gung-ho coverage from The Times and Sunday Times and then the Daily Outrage and Outrage on Sunday (are we surprised?!)
I was horrified & disgusted by what happened to this fellow. As I watched I kept thinking, this is what they did to Meghan and this is the result they wanted–and almost got–from Meghan. If the investigation of his death focuses solely on his actions and not on the press, nothing will ever change.
Agreed 💯@Beaniebean I attach a petition for people to sign to ask for a public enquiry into press conduct here.
Jason Arday: Demand a public inquiry now | Good Law Project https://share.google/Cf0ak4CGimdvC06o6
If allegations existed before this last public incident, it’s possible he was a plagiarist, but none of that justifies a harassment campaign. The university definitely failed him. If they vetted him previous to putting him the role and didn’t find merit to the accusations, they should have come out in full-throated defense of him from the start. If they didn’t vet him properly, then they definitely failed him because they should have known a POC would be placed under undue scrutiny in a way somebody white or white passing would not.