Jason Arday was treated as a symbol, not a man

On August 14th Jason Arday was found dead, apparently from suicide, at his home in London. For those who loved this 41-year-old Cambridge professor, it is a tragedy. For the world it is a warning of the destruction bad ideas can wreak.

The bad idea here is that people should be judged not by their individual character and abilities, but by their race, disability or other politically charged attributes. Mr Arday became the University of Cambridge’s youngest-ever black professor in 2023, before being engulfed by a scandal over plagiarism and faked research. He bore responsibility for his own downfall. Yet just as troubling is the way both his supporters and detractors even now reduce him to a symbol.

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The most egregious is Cambridge, which used him to repair its reputation for being white and elitist. He did not deserve the glittering prize of a professorship there. His peers had for some time privately fretted that he lacked the credentials to support his public profile. Journalists at the Telegraph later found over 100 passages from his PhD thesis that had been copied, some with small changes, from someone else’s. Others uncovered evidence in his published research of made-up quotes, data and funding claims.

Perhaps the university was hoodwinked by a conman. Yet Mr Arday’s words paint him as a guileless fabulist. He spoke of visiting professorships at Glasgow and Ohio State Universities; both denied it. He said he had raised £5m ($7m) for charity, then that this had been in conjunction with others whose identities were protected by non-disclosure agreements. He described how he had run 30 marathons in 35 days, nine with a broken leg. When asked about his extraordinary feats by the Guardian, he said: „I thought you’d just believe me.”

Cambridge seems to have been blinded by its eagerness to claim Mr Arday as proof of its inclusiveness. Here was a star professor who was not only black but had also overcome staggering disadvantage. Until he was 11, he claimed, he could not speak; until the age of 18 he was illiterate. He was also autistic. He was, in short, a walking, talking bundle of traits glamorised by people who want to promote diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Those who appointed him glossed over whether he was up to the job, or to the scrutiny that would surely come with it. The man was subordinate to the symbol.

Few emerge from this affair unsullied. Nathan Cofnas, a former Cambridge academic who describes himself as a „race realist”, was early to accuse Mr Arday of plagiarism. He has been proved right, but his motivation was hardly pure. Mr Cofnas was fired by his college after writing in a blog that, in a meritocracy, „Blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.”

Mr Arday lied on a grand scale and, though vulnerable, dealt aggressively with any who questioned him. A journalist who asked about plagiarism was reported to the police for harassment. Mr Arday enlisted ferocious libel lawyers to help squash the story. Those now blaming newspapers for his death and calling for more curbs on press freedom are continuing to treat his life as a morality tale. In fact, today’s laws helped Mr Arday suppress legitimate questions of public interest.

For Cambridge, hiring Mr Arday was a handy substitute for years of sustained hard work. The share of black professors at the university remains a tiny 0.4%. Cambridge says it offered Mr Arday support after he resigned. Given how things turned out, it should have taken its duty of care more seriously.

And just as Mr Arday’s supporters dehumanised him during his rise, so his detractors rushed to use him as he fell. His case has delighted those who argue that all efforts to diversify institutions like Cambridge are wrong. The irony is that doubt may now fall unjustly on other academics from minority groups—precisely those whom activists supporting people such as Mr Arday say they want to help.

The content of their character

The fervour for DEI had already begun to pass by the time of Mr Arday’s appointment. Since his death, pundits have debated what, exactly, he was a symbol of: peak woke, or the rise of digital lynch mobs? He should be remembered as neither, but as a human being. And the institutions that failed him should try harder to look at people as individuals, with their own virtues and flaws, rather than as emblems of anything.

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