Jason Arday
There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.
Galatians 3:28, New Testament, The Bible.
Quite apart from the tragedy of his death, the furore that surrounded Jason Arday leading up to it was troubling. Of course, as onlookers observing accusation and response by the different parties we have only a partial understanding of the truth. The most helpful reporting I have come across is the Guardian article by Lanre Bakare (1) which seems to have been able identify the different allegations that were made against him in an objective manner.
Plagiarism is a serious allegation in academia but it is also notoriously difficult to clearly identify and prove. The main allegation (from what we can gather from media reports) that his Ph.D thesis contained long sections that were plagiarised has been firmly rebutted by Liverpool John Moore’s, the awarding university, which ought to have been the end of the matter. The Guardian article, however, identified other questions that needed to be addressed but which now, of course, are rather moot.
What is troubling about the proceedings is the way a matter of academic and, perhaps, personal integrity, was rapidly politicised and became not only a matter of one individual’s academic record, but a public inquisition of their entire life and an attack on the appointment of a specifically black academic to a senior position in a major institution. Cambridge University itself added fuel to the fire in its reactions to the allegations. Initially, mounting a robust defence of Jason Arday, the university (as it was presented in media reports) then pivoted to declaring that it would be mounting an investigation into the process that resulted in his appointment. This was tantamount to admitting that not only was he guilty of the charges alleged but that the appointment process was unsound with the subtext that it was the fact that he was black that made it prima facie unsound. The university doubtless would reject such an understanding of its actions but it is difficult not to read this messaging in the way its actions have been reported.
Having spent the first part of my professional life as an academic (and having studied at Cambridge as a postgraduate) I find it hard to believe that a professorial appointment was made in ignorance of a candidate’s work and reputation. Academia is a small world, especially at senior levels – people and their work are well-known long before they make it onto a professorial short-list. Jason Arday and his work would have been known. It is hard to imagine how he might have made it even onto the short-list without a suitable record of academic achievement.
Jason Arday’s death punctuates the whole matter with tragedy but even apart from it the whole matter is troubling. If he had not been a black person would the affair have been treated in the way that it was, both by Cambridge and by the media? It is troubling that the DEI wars in America have seeped across the Atlantic.
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