Jason Arday #3

[VeniVidiVicki]

I’ll make it easy for you - he’s a racist.The Nazis also believed their focus on “eugenics” was a scientific and philosophical pursuit. Nope. Just racism and deadly at that. And the amount of dog whistling in these threads (and how many people confidently state they are absolute not racist) is depressing.

It’s a distraction. He produced clear unambiguous evidence that Arday had plagiarised his PhD.

And if Arday hadn’t sicced a law firm and the police on anyone who questioned him, it wouldn’t have been a man with questionable views about race who broke the story.

It’s very convenient to the framing though.

As for the New England Journal of Medicine

Arday’s ‘publications’ didn’t only focus on race and racism. His PhD didn’t. His one solo published book was under 100 pages long and about being black and liking britpop. Also massively plagiarised. He was an indifferent scholar who leveraged the work of other people to advance his own career. Anyone who thinks that’s somehow heroic is either stupid or someone who supports nepotism and other unfair advantages.

 

[Valiofthedolls]

I don't want to sound dramatic, but the way he spoke about Liverpool has really pissed me off.
This is a city that has one of the oldest black communities in the country, had the first British mosque, has the oldest Chinese community in Europe FFS.
Yet he speaks of us as though we've never had any experience of a well educated black man. I'm not denying that black people are woefully unrepresented in education, but I had at least a handful of black teachers when I was in school and college here.
His book smacks of someone who thinks the North is one large homogeneous mass, possibly all racists, flat cap wearing, Brexit voting, slightly unsophisticated people.
If he'd actually bothered to immerse himself in the culture of the city he lived in, he'd have realised we're massively, proudly, multicultural.

I don’t believe for a second the incurious fantasist ever lived in Liverpool, spent any meaningful time there whatsoever, or even spent the night there beyond maybe (generously) a handful of times if for work reasons absolutely forced to. I’m imagining his commute was similar to that of his Glasgow back and forth-into and out of the classes he was required to teach then immediately back home to London. His entire Liverpool experience was him getting from JMU to the bus station and back, probably by cab and definitely traveling there as infrequently as he could get away with. His nonsensical imaginings and stories about the good kind (and not so good and kind) simple White folk of Liverpool and their encounterings of the exotic Black fella are just testament to what an incurious, dull, often offensive self-absorbed fabulist he was.

FFS look at his “old Liverpool haunts”

and there’s the “I lived on Penny Lane” guff. FFS. If one of his ‘I love the bands of the music of the Northwest’ bands had come from Leeds and written a fucking song about Briggate he’d have lived on Briggate while working at Beckett and they’d have been calling the police at the shock of seeing a Black man entering a house in Leeds.

Now you’ll have to excuse me. I used to live in New York, New York (so good they named it twice) and today I’m showing my A Level English teacher around my “old haunts” Battery Park, the Tenement Museum, Studio 54 and Ripley's Believe It or Not! Times Square.

 

[manual]

The moment we are born, our fate is sealed. Death is inevitable. A life isn't measured by length, years are not fungible, a year in my life is not a year in your life. I'm in my mid 30s and I have long since made peace with my inevitable demise, I could die tomorrow and I wouldn't mind, I've lived a very long life that I am grateful for. For others, the thought of dying in their 30s is unthinkable, their life hasn't even begun, they have another hundred years of things to do, places to go, people to see, love to give.

Jason lived a life on top, the youngest black professor at Cambridge, a book deal, he was living in rarefied air. He wasn't breathing that air from the top of a mountain, though, he was standing on a tower of milk crates. Each crate of lies made the tower even more unstable. He knew that. Every day he knew that his life as he knew it was on borrowed time. Long before the front page news and the social media buzz, he knew that someday it must end. Maybe he had reckoned with this, maybe he made peace with this, maybe he knew that he couldn't live as Jason Arday the disgraced fraud once the myth of Jason Arday the groundbreaking academic shattered.

I hate the discourse around Jason being driven to his death or even more disgusting the idea that he was lynched. We don't know how Jason felt or what Jason wanted. Maybe this was how he wanted things to end? Maybe he had made peace with how he would deal with his inevitable downfall. Maybe he wasn't prepared to pay for 10 years on top with 40 years of shame. Maybe, he reasoned, he was ready to pay for a few years on top with his remaining few decades of breathing.

Death is hardest for the living. Every day we must reckon with our mortality, leaving our family and friends behind, every death of someone we know, whether personally or through some pixels on a screen, confronts us. The people outraged about Jason being driven to his death aren't really upset about what happened to Jason, in fact, they may not even care at all, but they are struggling with their own mortality. What if they were outed in the press for a mistake they make? What if their loved ones were? How would they handle it? Are they just one news cycle away from death?

I can't speak for Jason, maybe in his final moments he felt that the entire world was demanding his death, maybe he wanted desperately to live but saw no way to continue... we don't know, we can't presume to know. That said, I'd be pretty irate if I killed myself tomorrow following a press exposé on some dumb things I did, and every think piece author was blaming the people who clowned me in the reddit comments for my death. Uh, no, the hypothetical me ended my life because I'm happy with my lot, and 50 years living with the fallout of my mistakes doesn't sound fun.

We can be sad that a man is dead, we can be sad for his family and friends, we can look at how we treated the story and consider whether we should have handled it differently, but to say that we are responsible for his death, that we killed him, that we lynched him is to rob him of his agency. I'm sure at this very moment, Jason is living his best afterlife, perhaps plagiarising for his latest submission to Cambridge Journals' Politics and the Afterlife Sciences, What Do We Know About Suicide Amongst Disgraced Black Academics in UK Higher Education? or perhaps regaling the other ghosts with stories about the time he won the world cup for England in 1966 by scoring a goal from the stands, or the medication he invented to cure racism, or the billions of people who followed Ardayism, so on and so forth.

And for the record, if I kill myself after being outed for professional misconduct and someone makes a GoFundMe, I'll be haunting them relentlessly. Likewise, think piece writers blaming anyone but me for my choice, their papers and pens will be mysteriously blowing off their desks for many years to come. Let me rest in peace, buried beneath the mess I created.

Sent from my iPhone 20

 

[NomDeGuerre]

I see the woman who plays Denise in EastEnders is the latest zeleb to do a teary to camera piece haranguing the media for daring to expect academics be honest about their credentials.

Do all these handwringing non-entities realise they’re perpetuating the burden of low expectations placed on black people in academia?

 

[nothanksbabes]

This might be controversial but I don't care about the motives or opinions of the person or people who exposed Arday.

It's a shame that the person who was "targeted" was actually a perfect example of what the alleged racist believed, but Arday shouldn't have been in his position anyway.

The idea that you have to be morally pure to talk about things is absurd. Anyone who wants to can read Cofnas's work and speculate on his motives. There are a million and one problems with his hypothesis about genetics, race and intelligence IMO (which I won't go into here). Not one of them changes the facts of Arday's abject unsuitsbility for the position he was given, or the fact he was a liar. People I might not like can ask questions I don't like, and whether I'm persuaded either way depends on the evidence, not whether I think they're a great person.

 

[Tabitha D]

Commentary from Private Eye:

 

[Jelly Bean]

Does anyone else feel like they woke up in an alternate universe? The world has gone mad. Common sense and critical thinking have been abandoned it seems.

Meanwhile I’m still trying to understand how anyone can believe such an infantile style of writing is the product ot a Cambridge professor? Can someone make it make sense?

100%.
Anyone being slightly critical of a compulsive liar who did very well out of hoodwinking people is branded a racist who wanted him dead.
Meanwhile a defenceless old lady is bludgeoned to death in her own home and a lot of the same people feel she asked for it for having 'views'.

 

[Warpaint]

He had the chance to blow everyone out the water by being a fantastic Professor to his students and have hoards defending him from over the years, saying what he'd done for them etc.

Sadly this seems to be far from the case, and he preferred to just go on any press tour, award ceremony and ribbon cutting going. Taking all the credit for absolutely nothing.

I hate to use the term Orwellian, but if those at the protest had their way, history would be re-written right before our eyes. And let's face it, in this climate it's probably going that way.

 

[hogwartsgraduate]

Just went to check the GFM to see if any funeral update has been given and seen this nugget ...

"As the scale of the fundraising grows, we are now potentially entering a new phase: looking beyond the immediate funeral and memorial costs towards how we can support Jason's dependants in the longer term and, at an appropriate time and in discussion with his family and their legal advisers, consider a permanent legacy that honours his life, work and contribution."

- Funeral AND Memorial
- 'Permanent legacy that honors his work and contribution'

Just do a funeral , give the rest to any dependents, but just shut down the damn GFM now.

It's nearly at 222k

 

[nothanksbabes]

I keep reading that he was charismatic. Was he?

A good looking guy (at least before the eyeliner and perpetual shine), he absolutely was. But listening to him speak... I'm not charmed so much as I want to crawl up my own hoop to escape the sensation of watching someone humiliate themselves.

 

[didisaythatoutloudoops]

One of my friends is an associate professor at a Russell Group uni. Some of her students (both undergraduate and postgraduate) can barely speak English. They write their essays using AI. Supervision sessions happen via google translate.

We have a huge huge problem in HE in the UK. Arday is just the tip of the Iceberg

My daughter attended her graduation of her online Masters expecting to talk to students she had worked with on joint online tasks, having read their discussion contributions. Most struggled to form basic sentences in English.

Students aside; several of the course supervisors - when she could actually get hold of them - were similar. Her thesis supervisor, despite having a PhD in the topic, struggled to understand basic terms in the field when she mentioned them. On top of his clear lack of interest, lack of preparation for their meetings (he turned up at feedback sessions having not read her paper at all), he was an outright misogynist - with comments like 'can someone like you handle this topic' and 'that's a lot for you to understand' and that 'this section is too long, but too much talking is an issue for people like you'. She's a white female and her supervisor a black male in a STEM subject, to note.

A formal complaint finished with no investigation, suspension or discipline of the supervisor whatsoever, but the university conceded his lack of feedback/missing meetings/no response to emails was 'below the standard experience' and gave her a token 5% tuition fee refund.

 

[InkHeart]

I went to one of the poshest universities, as a very poor kid from a council estate. At uni, a lot of people, even some teachers, were rude to me because of that. I sometimes didn't like them either, because rich people seemed very brash and naive to me. It's difficult to like anyone who asks why you don't just buy a car, when you spent your Christmas break eating from a foodbank. And I'm sure they saw me as a bitch killjoy for pointing that out.

But it never occured to me that that needed to be "fixed" somehow. Cultural and personality clashes are normal at every stage of life. There is no rule they could have made that would make a place a good cultural fit for everyone at once. By all means, it's important to let poor kids have a good education, but there isn't a way to make people feel at home when they are very different from the majority of people around them. That's part of life. It happens when you study abroad, it happens when you're the only person under 35 at your workplace, it happens when you're the only man or woman in your workplace, and a load of other times. The answer is basically to rub along as best you can.

I think Arday and the people in his academic field are trying to conflate a real, fixable problem - any instance where someone can't go to university because they are black or poor is terrible and should be stamped out - with the fact that it's kinda shitty to be in a workplace where most people are socially different from you. The latter is unfortunately normal and not fixable.

 

[ButtonDownTheHutches]

A powerful message indeed.
View attachment 4099352

All I get from this is ‘I want everyone to see how quirky & artsy my notes are, ergo how cool & unconventional I am’

 

[BettyRizzo]

I am so fed up. As many previous posters have said, we seem to be shying away from critical thinking, and difficult conversations. This is how we learn, develop and grow. You do no one any favours by pandering to them - it will all implode eventually.

I am genuinely worried for how this world will be in 10, 20 years time - it feels like 1984 is round the corner.

 

[Valiofthedolls]

Never mind Oasis. It’s all about the Foo Fighters these days.

Based on, like, well, like, everything, how anyone could believe this was a serious academic (who can barely talk about anything other than himself even when meant to be giving a keynote or talk on Academia is a Crossfire Hurricane*) is mystifying.

Spoiler: *

which he clearly named/titled himself, and which makes zero fucking sense whatsoever.

Not to me it doesn’t. But then, I’m not, like, basically the Lady GaGa of the nonprofit sector, so.

 

[VeniVidiVicki]

So saintly Giff didn’t get him any reasonable adjustments at school nor had she applied for DLA and PIP for him? And kept him in MS education even though they hadn’t taught him to read or write?

What a load of baloney. And I hate the way he talks about women. They’re all just cyphers to support the great Jason in achieving his ambitions.

 

[Yel]

Listening to the spiked podcast about this and they're mentioning the Phillip S scandal and how people in the media knew the truth 18 months before it came out. Hello??!! People on tattle knew the truth years before and unlike Mumsnet and digital spy it wasn't all deleted as there was extensive evidence.

Tattle is called a gossip forum but actually it's not unfounded made up stuff but usually based on receipts and honest opinion rather than wild speculation with no basis.

If Jason arday had of been bigger on social media or crossed paths with other pathological liars like jack Monroe or not a doctor Jessica Taylor then he would have had a thread years ago

The sooner the truth was widespread the more chance there would have been of this not having such a tragic outcome.

 

[didisaythatoutloudoops]

This is a brilliant way of putting it, thank you!

What really interests me is education vs street smarts. Like, I'm not well educated (formally, I'm an auto-didact innit? lol) but I can spot a bullshitter 100 yeards off. Hilary Creminlin and all the other Cambridge dons, obviously degrees and IQ scores coming out their pores, yet could not spot an obvious grift despite the evidence in his academic 'work', the fact that students at Roehampton had complained, journalists sniffing around, etc.

Why couldn't they see it? Was it just that typical Progressive racism that assumes Black people are somehow 'other' or 'wild' and therefore must be held to crushingly low academic standards (but then, Thomas Sowell...?). Or did Cambridge KNOW he was full of it but propped him up for political reasons (in which case they have no morals because they're happy to use a mentally ill person as a totem or a puppet)? or is it in fact possible to be highly educated but frighteningly low in street smarts / lived experience so that an obvious liar is not obvious at all to them?

I do often wonder about that third possibility. Because Jack Monroe was beloved by some very so-called intelligent people at one point. And likewise there were at one point highly intelligent people proclaiming that binary sex doesn't exist and that white people are the evillest destructors of all humanity all times and in all places.

Which sometimes makes me wonder if at least some of our cultural, political and academic elites are thick as shit and talking out of their arseholes. Which is, ya know. Worrying.

I honestly think it's self-preservation. If they call out their workplace(s) as having awarded or hired someone woefully unprepared, producing sub-standard work and insanely out of their depth - they're scared that it will devalue their own work, even if it is entirely honest.

It's the issue my daughter is facing, that I noted before. In short - Russel Group uni, STEM subject masters course. Vast majority of students used AI to patch together a final thesis, could barely string together a sentence in English at graduation. Professors didn't care, her supervisor was misogynistic, missed meetings, didn't read her paper before feedback, and barely understood the topic (despite having a PhD). A formal complaint led to no repercussions for him, but a partial shut-up refund of tuition fees if she didn't pursue it further.

But here's the issue. She worked incredibly hard despite almost zero support from the university. She earned her award - the exams, set by external adjudicators, were tough and many did fail. She paid thousands for the degree.

If she called out what I would consider to be a woeful scam - and I think that's the morally right thing to do - it devalues the award itself. With enough traction, it could result in that degree being seen as worthless. Two years of her life and tens of thousands of £s effectively reduced to nothing.

I think that is what is stopping many academics and students from speaking out - it's a very fragile system, propped up by everyone nodding and playing their part and keeping hush about how the sausage is actually made. It's Mutually Assured Destruction if you speak out - because it is nigh-on impossible nowadays to separate those who came by their degree honestly from those who didn't. You either devalue the degree as a whole or you keep quiet.

 

[ButtonDownTheHutches]

“There has been so much that has been written and said about our beloved brother, son, father, partner and uncle, mostly by people who don’t know the truth of what he experienced, and we experienced as a family, or what an extraordinary person he was.

“We are happy to allow the book to speak for itself and won’t comment further on its content. The family is still in shock and we are grieving. We call upon the media to give the family the space it needs to come to terms with this terrible loss.”"

Maybe I'm horrifically cynical, but to me that reads as an clear acknowledgment that the book contains a lot of inaccurate content.

 

[moldwarp]

I think he was delusional and enabled by a lot of people so genuinely thought any criticism was racist and the police should investigate. He believed his own hype as how could Cambridge and all the reputable people that told him he was amazing be wrong? Even in his death you have so many people who have distilled the whole thing to racism, which is doing more harm to the cause they're supposed to be helping!

The point is he's very different to DJT and how she's so dangerous and could have easily caused so many people to have a mental health crisis with devastating outcomes.

I have to say I agree with this take. I think Arday was very, very mentally ill, some kind of pathological fabulism which was either a clinical condition or a symptom of a severe underlying trauma. I think his mental illness long predated his 'exposure'. His family may well have known about these mental conditions and that's why they've stayed conspicuously quiet. It's not uncommon for families which are marked by severe mental illness, especially families which come from cultures where mental illness is judged harshly (like my family, and Arday's may have been the same) to kind of circle the wagaons and button up when the mentally ill person starts acting out. It's hard for outsiders to understand but it's a form of self protection tbh.

So yeah I think Arday had been very unwell for a long time, and he found himself in a position where all the people around him were applauding and supporting his delusions (which psychiatrists will tell you is the WORST thing for a delusive patient by the way), so he just kept up his side of it for as long as he could, which tbh was probably very stressful and scary for him. But then when the biggest supporter of your delusion, Cambridge in this case, suddenly turns around and tells you they no longer believe your delusion and in fact are going to investigate it (which he would read as punishment) - obviously that is going to cause a catastrophic collapse of one's world and psyche.

I pity Arday and I save my blame and contempt for Cambridge and everyone else who decided they wanted a Black mascot at the expense of the real person underneath. It's a despicable form of racism.