Frank Lechner on X: "Kathleen Stock and the Arday "delusion"" - "@kathleen_stock1 underestimates the challenge of confrontinting the Arday "delusion." Viewed politically, his supporters do not suffer from a lack of "coherent thought." She writes, as reported by @ProfAliceS from behind a paywall (full essay not available to me, alas), "There is, though, another lesson to be drawn here, about the difficulty of delivering truth to a person who is radically self-deceived. Sometimes it is just easier to become half-deluded too. Institutions nominally dedicated to knowledge . . . are full of people captivated by second-hand fantasies, excluding coherent thought. We need to help them face reality." Some Arday supporters inside and outside higher ed may be captivated by "fantasies," but their "thought" tends to be quite coherent, if you don't judge it by fusty academic standards but instead focus on the ideological impetus. Historic oppression and current neoliberalism combine to cause intolerable inequality, not just by class but also by gender and race, to be overcome by affirmative efforts to expand opportunity, restribute positions and resources, and advance the interests of underrepresented minorities. The reality of inequality needs to be replaced by a new reality of equity. You can call it a fantasy, but once the situation is defined as real in these terms, it is real in its consequences. Arday's rise and the response to his end are one such consequence. Another: good progressives must now fall in line to attack the vicious racist campaign against Arday, mere facts be damned--see also the NUJ @NUJoffficial message on "ethical" journalism. "Delivering truth" to help people "face reality" is going to be a thankless task as long as it is framed in generic terms of delusion and fantasy rather than the reality of ideology and political commitment."
Thread by @IonaItalia on Thread Reader App – Thread Reader App - "The people defending Jason Arday's lies have lost their minds. It's madness of a level that I would have thought actually impossible, except among a few clinically insane people, schizophrenics etc. Yet it seems to have become a mass hysteria, a folie à beaucoup. This is no longer about Arday himself or even about Cambridge University. It's about a bizarre new cult that seems to have mesmerised people in the UK. As someone has pointed out, I should have called this a folie à nombreux."
Frank Lechner on X - ""The people defending Jason Arday's lies have lost their minds." Not at all. It's important to see the political rationality at work. Strictly speaking, of course, defending the package of lies (more than just plagiarism) makes no sense, esp. considering the extent (including calling police etc.) But, given their priorities, Arday defenders are also acting rationally (though whether they'll succed is not yet clear!): by the Havel rule, trying to make others assent to lies in some way symbolizes and forces their submission, and by making Arday a martyr and deflecting criticism as racism, his defenders also promote a new round of leftist policy and try to cow media allies."
Alexander Kustov on X - "The whole Arday thing is absolutely breaking me. While many folks lament the loss of trust in higher education or the media, the bigger issue is clearly the loss of our trustworthiness. Regular people are not supposed to do their own research on things like masks, plagiarism, or racism—they *should* just be able to take what institutions like Harvard, Cambridge, or BBC tell them for granted. But now they can't. And they seek populist alternatives on social media that are even worse. I mean, I'm not sure I'd trust Cambridge administrators and many other universities myself now. And it's not just the replication crisis or DEI scandals—there are some disciplines like education where the standards are so low it's not even clear whether anything they produce can be replicated or falsified at all by design. I'm still a professor though, because I believe universities can be valuable and because I see a lot of great people around me doing serious work in the pursuit of truth and the public interest, even within social sciences. But to change course for the better and restore trust, we should start by restoring trustworthiness and calling out bullshit on our own side even when bad people on the other side exist and attack higher ed for the wrong reasons."
Richard Hanania on X - "Amnesty International on Arday “Jason was a scholar, teacher, colleague, friend and family member. He was also a Black autistic man whose journey expanded our imaginations and understanding of what we believed possible in academia. For racialised, Black, disabled and neurodivergent people, particularly those who have been told that our bodies, minds, origins or differences disqualify us from belonging, his achievements represented hope.” Fascinating split here between academia and the MSM. The Guardian and The Atlantic published real take downs. Academics and activists still act like the guy was a brave truth teller. Shows you where truth still matters."
When terrorist supporters proclaim that all the "experts" agree that Israel is committing genocide, they are referring to captured parties like Amnesty International
Mariella Frostrup on X - "Words matter. Headlines hurt. This is a tragedy created by pernicious media.Questions about Arday’s qualifications and early life should never have been front page news and top of every news bulletin. Accountability must follow. My sympathies to his family"
Dr. Dr. P: "I said what I said". on X - "Rubbish @mariellaf1 Jason Arday was a serial liar and a fantasist. He put a target on the back of every Black person with a qualification higher than a GCSE. I know this personally. I've spent 30 years dealing with the questions: "Are you a real doctor? Where did you get your qualifications?" (I literally got asked this just last week!) It is never-ending. Arday's actions set us all back a generation. Cambridge, and the entire academic establishment were complicit. And when the lies were exposed, he seemingly took his own life, leaving his children, widow, and parents to pick up the pieces Suicide is a tragedy that causes irretrievable damage to those left behind, and any premature death is to be mourned. But this tragedy wasn't created by a "pernicious media". It was created by a pernicious liar. And his enablers."
FreeByTheSea on X - "Did you known that anyone who goes for a job or a promotion at Cambridge University is mandated to sign up to their ‘Behavioural Attitudes Framework’(BAF)? They must;
•Explain their commitment to valuing ‘diversity’.
•Promote an inclusive environment.
•Challenge or report any attitudes that are deemed ‘inappropriate’.
Yes- they are mandated to snitch on their colleagues.
Small wonder Jason Arday’s lies went unchallenged, and he sailed in as their golden boy, when DEI requirements take such priority. As Doctor Norman Fenton writes in his new book,- ‘The Capture of Academia’- accuracy is sacrificed to ideology. I’ll link @profnfenton‘s book and the full interview with @joshxhowie in the comments. Well worth a watch and a read"
Louise Bagshawe on X - "Jason Arday’s death is a tragedy. There is not enough done in Britain on the NHS for emergency provision when it goes wrong. But Sadiq Khan’s appalling reaction, politicizing his death and attacking journalists and academics as “hounding” him, requires correction. The New York Times got it right, noting that Arday hired one of the most expensive law firms in England to try and suppress publication of the truth about him (and succeeded under the threat of a baseless lawsuit), knowingly falsely tried to jail the two nobly motivated academics that blew the whistle on him at great risk to their careers, and, again knowing he was lying, tried to imprison the selfless and courageous journalist at the Times HE who meticulously collated evidence of Arday’s plaigiarism and fabulism. Arday’s lies hurt his students at multiple universities. Impacted their lives. None of this was “harmless fantasy” and the rewriting of history to portray Arday as gentle, vulnerable and so forth totally ignores, as the New York Times does not, that Arday strove to put innocent men in prison for telling the truth. Now, you can persecute and defraud others, even try to literally put them in prison, and still be vulnerable yourself. Not just Cambridge, but also Liverpool John Moores university and Durham University all have serious questions to answer over that. It is absolutely awful and heartbreaking, and a horrific waste of a human being with a family and plenty of time to redeem himself that Arday took his own life, but every single one of the articles covering him, and all the mockery, was entirely justified because Arday tried to imprison his critics and end their academic careers to defend his own lies. Those are wicked and predatory acts and the tragedy of his suicide does not change, at all, what Jason Arday did to people for telling the truth about him."
Attacking the media is only fascism when they push the left wing agenda
Max Klinger on X - "This guy is the principal of my old Cambridge college, Homerton. Here he totally falsely calls the death of Arday a ‘lynching’. This is complete, unfettered, dogma, spoken to shut down legitimate scrutiny of the ideological corruption of our elite universities. Imagine being a student at that college and (rightly) questioning this type of cultish racial grievance narrative. Do you think you’d feel able to do so? I would say almost certainly not. Ideologues - like this bloke - with a clear and moronic political agenda are warping the education system and are not being held accountable for it."
CriticalReason on X - "Another Cambridge man whose academic record needs investigating - because if he can describe identifying Arday’s lies, theft, and bullying as a ‘lynching’ then I can only assume he has zero integrity, zero academic standards, and zero honesty."
Richard Spencer on X - "There are many “DEI hires” who have been unduly promoted and celebrated, but Arday was something different—a real psychopathic narcissist at the level of the “talented Mr. Ripley.” In a funny way, he made other Diversity hires look bad! The fundamental issue is not so much Arday’s lies as the SHARED FANTASY participated in by his colleagues and, really, the Western world at large. All psychopaths act this way. In manipulating us, they reveal our unexamined values, fantasies, and blind spots. In so many ways, Arday has done the world a great service!"
Rare | on X - "Jason Arday's former students on Jason Arday:
‣ he plagiarised course notes
‣ he would turn up late and leave early
‣ he spoke without actually saying anything
‣ he would cry racism when challenged
‣ he liked white girls
If this surprises you, poo in your hands and clap.
Meanwhile, in London, black and brown people ignore all of Jason Arday's lies so they can make it about race. These people are mentally unwell and have no place in our society. Deport, with haste."
Can anyone comment on Jason Arday's teaching? : r/UniUK - " Yes, I was on the one module that he was brought in to teach at Roehampton in the Autumn term of 2018. It wasn't his module, it was written by a previous academic and he made no changes to the moodle or updates. He was a terrible teacher who frequently arrived late and left early, on one occasion only teaching for 1 hour out of a 4 hour lecture. He rarely used the Powerpoint slides, made by the previous lecturer, in his lectures and usually sat on a desk giving his generalised opinion on racism, often drawing on his own experiences without reference to theories or academics relevant to the module (Youth Participation and Identities). He would sometimes show us film clips from films such as fish tank and kidulthood (links were on the previous moodle) and then ask us to have group or class discussions about it with little guidance as to what we were discussing. He often drifted into talking about celebrities using song lyrics to make his point from artists such as Tinie Tempah and eminem and talking about how black artists, such as Beyonce and Megan thee Stallion were sexualised by white men. Most of what he said was based on his own reflections and opinions. What really gets me is how he let down the students he was teaching. Roehampton is a very diverse university, both in terms of racial background and neurodiversity and takes inclusion very seriously. Although I was a white, mature student, more than two thirds of the class on the module were either black or from other non white racial backgrounds, mostly women, mostly having come straight from sixth form, initially they were charmed by his relaxed and cheerful attitude and his inspirational stories about himself, they also listened with interest to his accusations of every type of prejudice by white people but this changed as the module progressed and as Jason failed to arrive for class yet again. It gradually dawned on the class that we were learning nothing of academic substance and that much of his talk was actually meaningless and without any form of academic justification for his opinions. When it came to the assessment essay he recommended we answer one of the two essay questions (out of 4) that mentioned ethnicity as this was the only thing he had talked about. As a mature student I felt protective of the younger students who often looked to me for help and advice. I remember one young, black, female student coming to me in the library as we began to draft our essays and saying ‘I don’t know what to do, I’ve read my notes and there is nothing there I can use!’. She was not the only one and I directed them to resources and offered advice as best I could. In the end I wrote my essay using the references on the moodle from the previous lecturer and carefully reading her module objectives. I also used notes and resources from relevant teaching in other modules. I complained to the head of the course we were on about his teaching (I played her a recording of part of one lecture - this was something I was allowed to do due to my own dyslexia) and how I felt he was failing the students and she agreed to sit in on one of his lectures, after which she met with me and agreed that his teaching was as I described it however she asked me not to take it further as he would be leaving shortly and she would apparently be taking over the module for the Spring term and she didn't want to cause trouble when he was leaving anyway. She did not explain why he was leaving but I understood it was to take up a post at Warwick. He gave me 70% on my essay, with no feedback, which sounds good except that my average score for the year was 75% and this was my lowest mark of the term and actually dragged my average down. I asked for a meeting with him to ask him to explain why he had given me the mark and provide feedback. At Roehampton marking is blind so he didn't know whose essay it was when he marked it but in the meeting he implied that I was racist and that the only reason I wasn’t happy with 70% was due to my white privilege. I suddenly saw a very different side to him. But why I really have little sympathy for him is that his arguments about wanting to support black, ethnic minority and female students are not what I experienced. When he had the chance to actually do it he let them down."
Melissa Chen on X - "This is Professor Roland Fryer on @triggerpod discussing the reaction to his paper, particularly its findings on police use of lethal force. He received death threats, required police protection (ironic), and was suspended from the Harvard faculty over a handful of jokes that supposedly created a “hostile work environment.” His research lab was shut down for good measure. The old Twitter before @elonmusk bought it, flagged and suspended accounts simply for posting the paper, branding it as hate speech. They had endless tolerance for Arday’s lies. They went after Fryer for speaking the truth."
No one says Fryer was harassed due to racism. Curious. Clearly it has nothing to do with his not pushing the left wing agenda but actually fighting it
Andy Ngo on X - "London — I’m at the memorial attended by thousands of DEI supporters and leftist radicals for disgraced academic and serial hoaxer Jason Arday. The speakers repeatedly target academic @nathancofnas for breaking the story about Arday’s plagiarism. Labour MP Diane Abbott was one of the speakers who smeared Cofnas. Arday k—lled himself after journalists revealed he had lied about his academic work and purported major life accomplishments. He delayed the truth by siccing police and lawyers on journalists early on."
Nathan Cofnas on X - "There is an anti-Cofnas hate rally in Trafalgar Square with ~15,000 attendees. If I were in London there is a real possibility that I would be murdered. 1000s of academics & journalists knew the truth about Jason Arday for more than a year. Now you know why no one said anything."
WeGotitBack on X - "Diane Abbott: "This was a vicious campaign but it wasn't just a campaign against the professor, it was a campaign against all of us and that's why it is so important to come together and fight for justice for Professor Jason Arday." It wasn’t against me as I didn’t lie to get where I am today"
Sandra Parker on X - "James O'Brien is claiming that the 'root' of why the UK media went after Jason Arday's false claims last week was 'racism' Is that also the same 'root' of why James O'Brien made a very public dumping of his friend Jason Arday, last week? #OBINGO @LBC"
Channel 4 News on X - "Large crowds have turned out in central London at a vigil for the former Cambridge University professor Jason Arday - who was found dead last week. Almost 100,000 people have now signed a petition drawn up by the Good Law project calling for an immediate public inquiry. They claimed his death was the direct result of the sustained press harrassment which Mr Arday was subjected to - and said racism lay at the heart of the story."
Royal News Network on X - "If you mean an inquiry into how such an unqualified and prolific liar and plagiarist became a full-blown professor at Cambridge University, why yes, please investigate that. But to investigate "media harassment" for exposing the truth is ridiculous. That Misan Harriman is grifting at this "vigil" isn't a surprise, as he has always been on the Meghan Markle grift -- no surprise he jumped on the Jason Arday grift as well. This case, as ever, is quite simple. A prolific liar was exposed for his lies and couldn't just say, "I'm sorry," and ended his life because he was too cowardly to face reality. The message it sends is that the delusion he fueled with others' help, and what he gained from it, were clearly more important than his family and his own life (harsh but true). And this didn't have to be the end of his story. I would have loved to see Arday make amends, find redemption, and then later success. This time the right way. But he clung to his lies to the end, which were, again, fueled and supported by others who hold a portion of the blame for his death as well. Many of his supporters also want to do the same because they have all benefited financially, professionally and personally from the same DEI policies that gave rise to Jason Arday in the first place. They don't want their own grift to end either. What all these people at the vigil are doing by denying the reality of Arday's lies is just fueling more to head down this path towards destruction, and it's disturbing and disgusting. The reason Jason Arday is dead is that he was elevated far above his skill set and allowed to fabricate stories with impunity because the agenda was more important than education, integrity and, in the end, Arday's own life."
Malcolm Clark on X - "Jolyon Maugham complains about the media monetising pain. Yet he monetised Jason Arday and continued to do so even after his tragic death. Jolyon is what you get if you cross a self-righteous social justice warrior with a dodgy ambulance chasing lawyer."
Gordon Millar on X - "I couldn't agree more. On 29 July the University of Cambridge aggressively dismissed the reports of Arday's plagiarism and resisted the demand for enquiry. And, if plagiarism had been the only issue, this strategy might well have worked. Unfortunately for Cambridge and Arday, two other factors come into play – Arday's own extreme fantasising about his “achievements” and Jolyon Maugham's Good Law Project intervention. Most people have never head of Arday before 28 July, and the plagiarism issue is legalistic and dry to non-academics. But, after people began to check on-line, it became obvious that there was no independent evidence of any of Arday's remarkable claims about his life story and accomplishments. And it's at this point that Jolyon Maugham leapt on to the bandwagon and barged in with all the finesse of a bull in a china shop and forced everybody's hand. Framing the allegations against Arday as a politically motivated, racist attack, he produced an open letter that drew mainstream national press attention to what was initially a relatively niche academic dispute. Journalists, defending themselves against charges of racism, looked more closely at the evidence and, in particular, at Arday's biographical claims. The result was that a series of new stories about Arday's lies and fantasies appeared, but there was no “misinformation”, just a stream of revelations, from publicly available sources, that Arday had claimed non-existent achievements and offices which he didn't hold. From this point on the course of events was pretty much fixed. But not by the press. And Maugham's virtue-signalling self promotion absolutely didn't help."
Change.org UK on X - "In the 22 days before his death, 249 articles were published about Jason Arday. That's more than 10 a day. Tia Lazaro-James has launched a petition on https://t.co/7nKW12tdpN calling on the government to protect individuals from media harm."
Andy Ngo on X - "Leftists and DEI supporters are urging the British government to pass a law that would ban heavy media coverage of a person. They say this is needed after dozens of stories were published about Jason Arday’s numerous and extensive lies. There were so many stories because there were so many lies."
la scapigliata on X - "They didn't do it for JK Rowling. They didn't do it for Kathleen Stock. Or Anne Widdecombe. Or the Scottish girls defending themselves from groomers. But they want to legislate to limit the number of articles written, for a conman who set police on people who questioned him."
Of course when the press doesn't write enough articles slamming Nigel Farage the left will claim that the press is defending him
Alex Banks on X - "Amnesty International is a shell of its former self, but you'd think that someone in an organization originally dedicated to press freedom would see the irony of asking the UK government to investigate the press for wrong (accurate) thought"
Jeffrey Sachs on X - "Unreal. @AmnestyUK (left) calls and n the UK government to engage in mass press censorship (“Arday’s Law” on right). Putin would dream of this sort of power. Oh, you published four stories in 48 hours? Sorry, you’re only allowed two. Madness."
Muzzling the press is only fascism when it threatens the left wing agenda
Richard Hanania on X - "Almost five thousand signatures for "Arday's Law," which would place limits on how many articles the media can write about a person within a time frame. This would be quite funny. Like imagine if you're a murderer and the media writes about it but then you get free kills for a while without having to deal with the bad press because they used up their quota. Putin can sue for reduced coverage of the war in Ukraine."
Meme - Jack Blackburn: ""Sorry, I know you have fresh evidence on Epstein but you've hit your quota and we can't mention him ever again""
Change.org: "In the 22 days before his death, 249 articles ..."
"Call to introduce 'Arday's Law'. Petition to cap news coverage of any individual within a set time frame. "It is crucial for our society to foster an environment where public discourse is informed, fair, and respectful—especially when reputations and lives are at stake.""
Good Law Project on X - "“There is no doubt at all that this was a racist attack on a working class black man.” We're taking action – ask the PM to commission an immediate public inquiry:"
Alex Leo on X - "The people at the Good Law Project are more responsible for the circus that engulfed Arday than most. They denied the plagiarism, claiming the truth was merely racist lies. It was this refusal to deal with the obvious issues in Arday’s work that made it an international story."
They want to muzzle the press. Of course if they succeed, the next step will be trying to censor the foreign press and then social media
