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.
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.
It’s very sad. He should have never been hired, never been put in this situation. Even if his personal journey was true, and it’s not clear that it was, what qualified him to be a chair at Cambridge? Nothing, really. Even if his PhD was fully an original work, was it of a high level of scholarship? Even if it was of a high level of scholarship, had he done enough at 37 to be a university chair? Cambridge’s white saviorism was the original sin, the racists and media took it and ran. Jason Arday could have been saved from himself if proper vetting was followed by Cambridge. His death was a result of professional neglect and as much as disproportionate media harm. May he rest in peace. I don’t know how his two kids will make sense of this when they’re older.
Agree, but I wouldn’t let Arday off the hook. He lied and plagiarized, and tried to silence his critics with lawyers and police investigations. The NYT article lays it out plainly. If we are to move past racism in society, that means holding all people who do wrong accountable, not becoming apologists for some because they are from a marginalized group. Cambridge made many errors here, but it started with Arday.
There are plenty of cases of plagiarism where not single article was written because they were white men.
So no, let’s not blame the victim of a coordinated media lynching. 225 articles in a number of weeks.
What would happen if every academic was investigated that ‘thoroughly’.
The bots are all over sm with these exact talking points. Exact.
@vulpercula- held accountable? The first investigation cleared him and the second was in progress.
I’d challenge you to think what accountable means and who is held to that standard? Plagairism is rampant in academia. White academics often face lesser or no consequences. We, the public, never hear of those many many offenses.
But this man, again, had hundreds of articles written about him in just a few weeks. That isn’t just disproportionate but absolutely sinister.
The NYT isn’t the investigative body and using that as conclusive proof of anything is just stupid behaviour.
Do we use NYT articles to convict people in court?
Just say you want to attack the dead black man based on vibes and move on.
It was investigated and he was cleared. He was originally given the same grace of carelessness in giving credit to others that the previous white professors were given. However the racist professor who was fired from Cambridge started the smear campaign that the UKKK press happily jumped on.
This is an insanely racist thing to say that he wasn’t qualified for his position. No one here was on the hiring committee to know his qualifications or even understand his work.
Are you aware of the white professors at Cambridge also accused (and confirmed to have plagiarized ) who never faced this media lynching?
What about the reporting that there were more qualified candidates for his position, including women of color? Why doesn’t that merit comment by the media? He made false claims about running marathons and being nonverbal autistic, then suddenly able to complete a PhD. Has this also been explained?
Many academics get nailed for plagiarism and have articles written about them, but the UK tabloid media writes ragebait specifically to get Black Americans to engage and get them way more clicks than that UK audience ever could (this also explains the articles about Meghan). Tabloids are not journalism. The NYT reporting is a bit more serious. He’s made suspect claims on the record.
@Nic919, Perhaps it is better said this way – he did not meet all of the strict requirements of scholarship to be hired as a professor. That it is not racist when comparing his hiring criteria against the usual hiring for Cambridge. The NYT is not the investigative body but it did rely of documents that were provided to it to make this assessment.
Here’s the racist part, hiring someone purely for tokenism in order to later claim that blacks or minorities are not qualified when asked why the hiring numbers are so low. This way they can justify their racist policies. Apparently, two black women were also up for the role but Cambridge chose Professor Arday. This happens a lot more in organisations than people think.
That being said, Professor Arday was cleared of plagiarism, and several white colleagues, and/or similarly situated white counterparts (i.e., accused of plagiarism) were not held to account and were not hounded into death. Here, the lack of proportionality is clear. None of the white counterparts had hundreds of articles written about them. This is racist.
This was very abusive to Professor Arday and the newspapers need to be held accountable for their part in his death. They may not have committed the act but they were a contributing factor.
@Aseverjam: Interesting username BTW. Your comment sounds like a justification of the smear campaign. There is room for life experience as a basis for academic qualifications. This is done in the US all the time. Furthermore he was found innocent of plagiarism. This was a case of white people being aggrieved that he was elevated to a position that they believe black people should not attain. There was no justification for his treatment in the press.
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.
Exactly.
The British need to demand part 2 of the levenson inquiry.
Agree this, all of it.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
All discourse aside, it is tragic that he felt he had to end his life.