Professor Arday is the gift that keeps on giving | The Spectator - "Are congratulations in order for Sacha Baron Cohen? The more I read about Jason Arday, the Cambridge sociology professor and DEI poster boy caught up in a plagiarism row, the more convinced I am he’s the comedian’s greatest creation... there’s the over-the-top back story. He claimed to have been totally mute until the age of 11 – having been diagnosed with autism – and unable to read or write until he was 18. Yet in spite of these disadvantages, he earned a PhD by the time he was 30 – which he managed to complete while suffering from a brain tumour! On the face of it, utterly incredible. But it begins to make sense if you think of Arday as an Ali G-like character designed to test the limits of how unwilling white do-gooders are to challenge the claims of black people suffering from ‘intersectional oppression’, however implausible... All of these claims have been accepted at face value by the four universities who’ve awarded Arday honorary degrees, as well as the BBC, which published a laudatory profile when he became a Cambridge professor. How Baron Cohen must have laughed – assuming I’m right about Arday being a satirical creation. A stunt designed to expose the wilful blindness of hand-wringing liberals has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. Arday’s academic career, like his athletic achievements, reads like a fairy tale... To deflect these allegations, the comedian appears to have come up with the genius idea of enlisting his cousin, Sir Simon Baron Cohen, as a co-conspirator. In 2025, the director of Cambridge’s autism research centre co-authored an open letter furiously accusing Arday’s detractors of being racists. This was the academic equivalent of Ali G’s famous catchphrase whenever anyone challenged him: ‘Is it because I is black?’ It seemed to do the trick for another year, but last week the allegations resurfaced in the form of a Substack post by Nathan Cofnas, an academic philosopher at the University of Ghent. He identified dozens of passages in Arday’s PhD thesis that are almost identical to passages in a 2009 PhD thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a reader at Brunel University. An independent analysis by the Times corroborated the charge, citing ‘multiple examples of identical or near identical passages’, and Kathleen Stock, reviewing Arday’s academic output in UnHerd, pronounced it ‘unambiguously mediocre, bordering on comically terrible’. At this point, Baron Cohen must have thought the game was up – but no. This is a gag that keeps on giving. Jolyon Maugham, the vainglorious left-wing lawyer, has started a petition accusing ‘rightwing newspapers’ of ‘trying to smear’ Arday. Once again, Arday’s critics are charged with ‘racism’ and the petition calls on the great and the good to ‘stand up to hate and division’. So far, the signatories include the heads of three Cambridge colleges, five Labour MPs, Zack Polanski, Mothin Ali and our old friend Simon Baron-Cohen... it gets even better. Somehow, he’s also found the time to write what purports to be Arday’s autobiography entitled Great and Unfortunate Things, due to be published by Simon & Schuster next month. This subproject has already paid dividends, with effusive blurbs supplied by James O’Brien (‘a remarkable and brilliant man’), Kathy Burke (‘a unique and extraordinary man’) and Chris Gardner (‘the most inspiring book I’ve read in decades’)... So hats off to the Juvenal of 21st century Britain. He has succeeded in highlighting the flagrant double standards of our academic and political elites. It goes without saying that any white professor accused of similar misdeeds would most likely have been defenestrated from the academy long ago. But because Arday is black and neurodivergent, he has been instinctively defended by people desperate not to seem racist. As Cofnas points out, to hold a scholar to lower standards because he is black is effectively to say that if he was held to the same standards as a white scholar, he couldn’t possibly succeed – and that, surely, is a tad patronising, if not outright racist."
Leo Kearse - see me on tour! Links in bio on X - "The Great Blacksby - Cambridge's diversity hire Professor Jason Arday and the racism of low expectations. Professor Jason Arday is Britain's most impressive black man. He has a list of achievements that would make Chuck Norris blush. He ran 600 miles in six days, without being chased by the police. He ran 30 marathons in 35 days, nine of them with a broken leg. He raised £5.5m for charity. He once threw a kettle over a pub. He was non-verbal until just before his 12th birthday but still managed to play football and snooker professionally. He couldn't read or write until he was eighteen but became Cambridge's youngest ever black professor. He completed a PhD while having a brain tumour removed and having a stroke. But now some people are casting doubt on these achievements. They say they have unearthed evidence of plagiarism; of 188 sentences in his PhD thesis that are identical or nearly identical to another person's thesis. As Professor Arday would say, the evidence for this is "poultry". As James O'Brien and everyone else on the left would say, these people are bigots. There's no way Cambridge's white female elites would unfairly elevate a man just because he's black and has dreadlocks and they want to look like good people. I firmly believe that James O'Brien is correct and Professor Jason Arday is the smartest black man who has ever lived."
Andy Ngo on X - "The prestigious @Cambridge_Uni is standing behind one of its DEI celebrity academics accused of plagiarism. Prof Jason Arday, who became the university's youngest-ever full professor, appears to have copied many sections of his black studies dissertation from the work of a white female student. Leftist politicians, academics and media have been defending Arday, suggesting without evidence that the revelations are motivated by racism. Arday was fast-tracked into celebrity-like status in academia and media for being a black academic. Many black academics launched into top positions, like Harvard's former president Claudine Gay and others, have been accused of academic fraud. DEI advocates believe that is okay in order to further their agenda."
Lucky Adams on X - "BBC is of course quiet about this story, despite publishing a dozen or so puff pieces on him over the years"
Richard Hanania on X - "The Jason Arday story gets funnier the more you dig into it. He's a black Cambridge University professor of sociology has been caught plagerizing the work of others. Arday claims to have not been able to talk until 11, and learned to read and write at 18. "In 2023, at age 37, he became the youngest black full professor in the history of Cambridge. He is one of the youngest people of any race to ever hold a chair professorship at Oxbridge. In his spare time, Arday ran 30 marathons in 35 days and 300 miles in three days. As of 2023, he had worked with 'more than 70' charities and raised more than £5 million." Oh, and he's "barely slept" over the last 15 years. Despite not being able to read and write at the time, he somehow got a General Certificate of Secondary Education, which generally requires that one be literate. 30 marathons in 35 days, or 300 miles in three days, would make him an elite-caliber athlete, and there is no evidence he ever did this other than his own words. It's like performance art to see how desperate academics are for an inspirational black story. "Let's make the guy a serial plagiarist, and have him invent ridiculous stories about himself that would fall apart the moment anyone bothered to look.""
Jonathan Kay on X - "crazy story. @Cambridge_Uni hired a young black guy as a sociology prof, milked his fairy-tale origin story for anti-racism points, & then when researchers came around, pointing out that he was a serial plagiarist and his research was garbage, they just accused everyone of racism"
Stand in solidarity with Jason Arday | Good Law Project - "Jason is the youngest Black professor in Cambridge’s history. Rightwing newspapers are trying to smear him with fake accusations of plagiarism. We can't let them. Stand up to their hate and division by adding your name. We, the undersigned, are appalled by the sustained and malicious attacks on the academic integrity of Professor Jason Arday. Entirely false allegations of plagiarism were made against Professor Arday and referred to two universities. Investigations have found no evidence whatsoever of wrongdoing. The relevant academic journals also found no basis for the claims. Yet despite these unequivocal findings, rightwing media have attempted to smear Professor Arday’s reputation and undermine his career. That should concern everyone who believes in academic freedom, fairness and due process. It is difficult to ignore the question of motivation. When a distinguished Black academic is repeatedly subjected to baseless allegations after being fully exonerated, it signals there is an attempt to undermine Black people who hold positions of influence."
Plagiarism is Good Law
Dominic Frisby on X - "I read the list of the undersigned and it's a comprehensive directory of the most retarded people in the country"
Jonathan Kay on X - "I really can’t wait for the investigation into all the administrators at @Cambridge_Uni who turned a blind eye to this pathological liar because he happened to be a convenient skin colour for their DEI checklists"
Cambridge’s diversity poster boy faces questions over ‘miracle’ 600-mile run - "The Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row is facing questions over claims he has made about his athletic prowess and charity fundraising. Prof Jason Arday says he once ran 600 miles in six days for charity, 300 miles in three days, and 30 marathons in 35 days, partly with a broken leg. But experts in ultra-distance running have cast doubt on his claims, expressing surprise that he is not known in the ultra-distance community despite achievements that would put him among the world’s top athletes. Prof Arday also claims to have been a semi-professional footballer and to have raised £5.5m for more than 70 charities. Some of the country’s most respected academics have called for an independent investigation into allegations of plagiarism surrounding Prof Arday after The Telegraph reported last week on striking similarities between his PhD thesis and another student’s. The University of Cambridge insists there is no case to answer, and that he is the victim of a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility”. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded his doctorate, has also said his work had been checked and cleared. In 2023, Prof Arday became the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s history at the age of 37. His memoir, titled Great and Unfortunate Things, will be published next month, in which he recounts being non-verbal until shortly before his 12th birthday and only learning to read and write at the age of 18. Questions about Prof Arday’s autobiographical details have been swirling in the academic world for years, and those questions have intensified during the ongoing plagiarism row. On several occasions, he has described running 600 miles in six days from Edinburgh to London for charity, but on one occasion, he said the distance was 500 miles. Experts in ultra-distance running cast doubt on whether this was possible for an unknown amateur athlete, given that the world record for a six-day run is 650 miles, which was achieved on a flat circuit with a large support team and medical help on standby, as opposed to an undulating road route with little or no backup. Prof Arday has also said that he fell and suffered a hairline fracture on the 21st day of his 30-marathon challenge, causing his leg to swell to twice its normal size, but managed to carry on and run another nine marathons. Damian Hall, who has held several British records for ultra-distance runs and represented Great Britain at the Trail World Championships, said: “I haven’t heard of Jason before. Running 30 marathons in 35 days is perfectly possible and several runners, not necessarily elite, have done similar. “Running 100 miles in 24 hours is also perfectly possible, but it’s very hard to keep that going for two more days, without good breaks for sleep. Not impossible but pretty unlikely. “The 600 miles in six days is, again, not impossible, but would be remarkable, akin to the very best record-breaking ultra-runners. It seems odd that there appears to be no evidence of that. Usually runners are very keen to share news of runs like that on places such as Strava. If you’re claiming to have done runs as impressive as those, you should provide evidence, which is very easy via GPS sports-watches.” Another ultra-distance expert who has helped to stage many 100-mile-plus races said: “The six-day world track men’s record is 650 miles. Given the logistics and terrain, plus the support and sleep required, it would be a miracle.” In recent months, two universities that gave honorary degrees to Prof Arday have removed or watered down references to the 300-mile and 600-mile runs from their online biographies of him. Prof Arday’s memoir contains no mention of the 300-mile or 600-mile runs. Anglia Ruskin University recently changed the reference to 600 miles in six days to 600 miles in 12 days. In 2022, during an interview with the University of Bath, Prof Arday said: “As a child, I was fortunate to play football to quite a good level. I came out of an Academy system and then went into playing semi-professionally. His autobiography contains no mention of him being attached to an academy or playing semi-professionally. The Telegraph has asked Prof Arday which club’s academy he was attached to and which club he played for in a semi-professional capacity. The professor has also said in the past that he has raised £5.5m for charity... His memoir contains no mention of the £5.5m figure and says the 30-marathon challenge “far exceeded our original fundraising goal” but does not say what that goal was or by how much it had been exceeded. Prof Arday’s online biographies say that he has raised money “most notably for Shooting Star Children’s Hospices and Shelter”. A spokesman for Shooting Star told The Telegraph that Prof Arday had raised a total of £10,800 for the charity. Shelter refused to divulge the total he had raised for them, though a JustGiving page for his 300-mile-in-three-days feat shows a total of £380 raised. Prof Arday has also said in the past that he donated his share of a £20,000 book advance to charity. The Telegraph asked Prof Arday to provide a breakdown of his fundraising but received no reply."
Cambridge bosses face staff revolt over diversity poster boy row - "University of Cambridge bosses are facing a staff revolt over their handling of the plagiarism row surrounding one of its most high-profile professors. A growing number of academics have expressed disquiet over Cambridge’s refusal to re-examine the academic credentials of Prof Jason Arday, who has been accused of copying parts of his PhD thesis from another student. The university insists he is the victim of a “vile campaign to undermine his credibility”, but some senior staff believe the institution’s own credibility is now at stake... analysis of Prof Arday’s PhD thesis showed more than 180 separate passages were identical or near-identical to an earlier thesis published by another student... the Research Policy, Integrity and Governance division (RPIG)... has attracted criticism from professors at other universities for ignoring warnings about Prof Arday’s work as long as three years ago, and insisting his PhD is a matter for Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded him his doctorate... If the Grace is submitted to the Regent House – effectively Cambridge’s parliament – and is passed by it, it would be “virtually a no confidence motion in the vice-chancellor”, in the words of one academic source. The vice-chancellor, the university equivalent of a chief executive, is currently Prof Deborah Prentice, the first American to hold the post, whose academic speciality is gender stereotypes. In her previous role at Princeton University in the US, she was commended for improving diversity at the Ivy League institution. Prof Arday became the youngest black professor in Cambridge’s history when he was given the job aged 37 in 2023. There has been criticism of Prof Hilary Cremin, head of the faculty of education at Cambridge, who told Prof Arday when he was appointed: “We are so lucky to have you. You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do.”... John Preston, Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Essex, said: “White liberals, particularly in leadership positions, often tiptoe around black academics and do not treat them in an adult way. “The obvious way to deal with this scandal would be for Prof Arday to address his critics directly. There is a case to answer here, and in my judgment the best way to deal with this, and to allow the discipline to flourish, is for the university to facilitate this.”"
This is disgraceful. Cambridge is such a racist university. These academics push white supremacy and must all be purged
Cambridge professor made impossible claim he was on Seven Up - "A Cambridge professor hailed as a diversity poster boy claimed that he had featured in Seven Up decades before he was born. Prof Jason Arday said he had appeared in the television series, which follows the lives of a group of people for decades from the age of seven. The inaugural episode was broadcast in 1964. He was not born until 1985... A BBC spokesman confirmed that Arday was not involved with the Up: Millennium Generation films... “I can’t make people believe me,” he said. “Nobody lives their life having a receipt for every single thing they say or they’ve done.” He insisted that he had been subjected to a “dark arts” campaign."
Damn racists!
Dreglord Organslayer on X - "I hadn’t realised that this man’s fantasy lives were this fantastical or this easily refuted. I think this is the funniest demonstration of the weird collective mental illness called Emperor’s New Clothes Disease that I’ve ever seen. I hope Jason Arday was having fun with this because most of this con job doesn’t make sense otherwise. Most con men stick to the lies that make sense and keep them in position to benefit. This fella was publicly telling the most outrageous whoppers for no apparent reason. Had to be just doing it for the craic. Have to say, I would knock great craic out of that one myself - just blithely saying, Oh I was in 7Up, one of the most widely watched pieces of documentary television ever made, and seeing if the people nod along. What other stuff like this did he claim to have done? It’s great stuff."
Richard Dawkins on X - "The following little gems were not spewed out by The Postmodernism Generator, nor are they part of an Alan Sokal hoax. They are a representative selection from Jason Arday’s thesis, which earned him a PhD from Liverpool John Moores University. The University of Cambridge was mightily impressed, and they elected him to a professorship at the young age of 37. His thesis is now under suspicion of plagiarism, but plagiarism, if proved, would seem to be among that document’s lesser problems.
“Throughout the process, at critical junctures the researcher was conscious that with regards to providing knowledge to the participants regarding reflection and mentoring, a contradictory position was being adopted, with regards to eliminating anything that may resemble a hierarchical structure.”
“As the researcher, there was an awareness that the legitimacy of such suggestions regarding reliability are open to critique, however, this research study adopted these principles in attempting to maintain reliability through a qualitative research design.”
“As the researcher, textual units concerning the narratives and biographies were identified based on the criteria that the identified themes were fit for purpose in supporting the themes associated with the study.”
“As with other forms of discourse inquiry, narrative inquiry is underpinned by a social constructivist paradigm, in which behaviours and their meanings are socially situated and socially interpreted.”
“This process allowed the researcher to immerse themself in the data collated.”
“References were made with regards to the benefits that were gained from the peer-mentoring experience, with regards to developing pedagogically and working as part of a collegial environment to support each other during teacher training.”
“An important consideration which also formed part of the theoretical paradigm for the research recognised that the mentoring process is socially constructed, and therefore the relationship between the participants and the researcher needed to be tailored towards supporting the professional development of the student teachers, and making them autonomous social actors in this process, hence the researcher adopting the secondary position of facilitator within the research.”"
Patrick Neylan on X - ""If you can't explain it to a cocktail waitress, you don't understand it yourself." Einstein Remember when Feynman demolished the Challenger inquiry with a clamp, a rubber ring and a glass of iced water? A simple demonstration that a 10-year old could understand."
Jason Arday: I am not a liar, says star academic accused of plagiarism - "He said his reputation had been maligned: “I’m being portrayed to be a liar and a fantasist and an academic fraud.” He denied fabricating stories about marathon running and raising millions of pounds for charity, though he conceded he was part of a fundraising “syndicate” rather than doing it all himself. Addressing his depiction as a one-man fundraising extraordinaire, Arday said “I accept responsibility that I could have been really, really explicit” in correcting that narrative... academics from various disciplines and across the political spectrum have called for an investigation into Arday’s work, including Colin Mills, head of Oxford’s department of sociology, and Martyn Hammersley, a leading expert in research methods. In a sign of the toxicity of the row, a journalist investigating the sceptics’ claims was reported to the police by Arday for alleged harassment... He said the panel should also consider “insidious and relentless strategies” to remove black academics by discrediting their work “under the guise of academic integrity”. The panel concluded in March that the citation issues were a result of “honest and reasonable error” and also detailed that the text overlap with Zwozdiak-Myers was “well within the accepted range of compliance with the academic standards of the time”... That lack of supervisory oversight, Arday claims, is key to failings in his early academic work... The Times also found inconsistencies in how he described his participants. In one paper, participant no 11 is variously described as a black female academic, an Asian female professional services worker and a mixed-heritage female academic... Independent experts said on Friday that failings uncovered by The Times warranted further investigation. Arday said: “I think these are viewed as discrepancies, but I do not view them as discrepancies. I’m saying that they’re different people who have very similar experiences in higher education as people of colour. It’s more likely that I’ve made a mistake, there’s a clerical error. It’s not that I’ve fabricated.” He said the papers were peer-reviewed but errors slipped through, and there had been big improvements in his work over time. “At the stage I’m at now, if I write something, I can afford a proofreader”... Asked why he did not correct the narrative, he said: “Could I have ever guessed that somebody would literally comb through every single word I’ve ever said on that? There’s no way because I never, ever guessed I’d ever be in this position.”"
This is a good reminder that to left wingers, keeping their favoured groups accountable is considered "harassment"
Being familiar with historical university standards, I can confirm that this was well outside the accepted range of compliance with the academic standards of the time
In my Cambridge days, Jason Arday’s lies wouldn’t have lasted five minutes - "A Cambridge spokesman told the BBC it was “standard practice” for investigations to be carried out by the institution at which the research was done (in this case, Liverpool John Moores University). Yet they also claim that they view academic misconduct “incredibly seriously”. Cambridge’s decision not to double-check baffles many, not least alumni like me, who remember the university having a zero-tolerance approach to plagiarism. Arday’s extraordinary backstory doesn’t stop at Cambridge. He was once a semi-professional footballer, we discover... when challenged about these athletic feats, Arday’s response was: “I can’t make people believe me... Nobody lives their life having a receipt for every single thing they say or they’ve done.”... Who can forget the Duchess of Sussex telling Oprah that she and Prince Harry were secretly married by the Archbishop of Canterbury in their backyard three days before the official wedding? Again, instantly disprovable. Yet the comeback was predictable, with a spokesman for the couple clarifying that they had merely exchanged personal, private vows. In other words: “It was a marriage to me.”... When the global bestseller, The Salt Path, turned out to be quite heavily filtered, its author, Raynor Winn, avoided addressing the legal and financial discrepancies highlighted. Instead, she leaned heavily on the “emotional and spiritual truth” defence. Confronted by her lies on 60 Minutes back in 2015, Belle Gibson, the disgraced Australian influencer who deceived thousands of online followers into believing she had terminal brain cancer, insisted that she was also a victim. Being told she did not have cancer, she explained, “was something I had to come to terms with, and it was really traumatising, and I was feeling a huge amount of grief”... The shame of being caught out no longer exists. In its place is defiance and a sense of pride around the prioritising of feeling over fact. But imagine what a great read Arday’s forthcoming memoir – Great and Unfortunate Things – is going to be."
At Cambridge, like at Harvard, plagiarism is alright if you're black, and those who complain about it are racist and are the real problem
Maarten Boudry on X - "There's no point in further belaboring the fact that Jason Arday is a rampant plagiarist, an incompetent scholar, and a pathological liar. (If you've lost @guardian , it's over.) Arday obviously needs help and should never have been placed in this position. Far more damning for academia—and genuinely baffling to me—is the legion of academics who rushed to express their "unwavering support" for Arday over the past few days, dismissing the allegations as "baseless" and "entirely false", while impugning the motives of anyone who dared criticize his fabrications as "racist." (The massive irony, of course, is that they are judging Arday's work by the "color of his skin" rather than by its merits.) How do you watch this train wreck play out and conclude, "Hmm, this seems like a good moment to jump aboard"? How can you be so willing to ruin your own reputation alongside Arday's? That open letter from @GoodLawProject will now circulate forever. Even a distinguished scholar like @sbaroncohen couldn't resist signing it. This is genuinely baffling. How detached from reality, how ideologically blinkered, how self-righteous do you have to be to engage in this kind of reputational self-immolation? It points to a far deeper rot in academia than the case of one pathetic fraud."
Eric Muraille on X - "> How can you be so willing to ruin your own reputation alongside Arday's?
Because loyalty brands are only valuable if they are expensive. That's the price to pay to be part of a community. The reputation of Jason Arday's supporters will be enhanced within their "progressive community." They are not interested in their reputation outside of this community, presumably because those outside it are perceived as right-wing enemies. These loyalty tests are what forge a community, what determines who is who."
Samuel Watling on X - "Jason Arday could easily save his academic career and create the greatest anthropological work of the 21st century by just saying he was in fact doing an experiment on how stupid and guillible the British academic establishment could be."
Matt Taibbi on X - "That there’s even a controversy about this story is incredible. If a Cambridge prof can plagiarize this carelessly and get away with it for years, and still have defenders, shows academia is totally broken"
Plagiarism row professor Jason Arday inspired Andy Murray - "Scottish historian Professor Sir Tom Devine said it was "difficult to reach the truth" from the media reports. He said: "Extended plagiarism is rightly judged to be the primary mortal sin among scholars."
Pete North on X - "The Jason Arday story is pivotal because you can safely bet a testicle that he isn't the only one. While that is a concern in its own right, it speaks to the credulousness of modern academia, which is now a liberal left monoculture that believes literally anything it is told so long as it fits the narrative. This is why they believe the far right is an imminent threat, even as leftists are attacking the police with sledgehammers and breaking into the homes of prominent old ladies and battering them to death. Universities produce what the system incentivises. Academia will not change until the incentives change. Who they put front and centre is all contingent on what the research councils and funders are incentivising. They want to be told the system is racist and will promote the people who say it is. While this is stupid, counter-productive and unserious, it is also corrupt. There is a perception that universities are now completely woke. That's not strictly true, but the reason wokery gets a foothold is because the people who work in academia are lamentably stupid middle class liberals who are even more out of touch than the political class. The average university staffer thinks HIGNFY is the height of wit and suffers from chronic Trump Derangement syndrome. It's the last place on earth you would expect to hear and original thought, and of what it does produce, it is light years behind the curve and riddled with error. But that is of no consequence to these people because nobody reads what they produce. Most of what they produce is unreadable and that is generally accepted. The bottom line is that most modern academia outside of STEM is completely worthless. It is a money and reputation laundering racket, for which there is no remedy. You cannot fix something this corrupted without a complete purge. If you want to reform higher education in the UK, this below is your starting point...."
