Cambridge University’s DEI poster boy professor an enemy of free speech
It’s a reasonable assumption that when people try to suppress free speech and inquiries by journalists, they may well have something to hide.
Now that Jason Arday, Cambridge University’s fantasy-prone youngest-ever black professor has finally resigned, commentary on the case has mainly focused on its implications for academia’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) hiring strategies.
However, the case is also important for what it says about the way both the civil and criminal legal systems can be manipulated by those whose bona fides turn out to be less than unimpeachable.
Arday, it will be recalled, has not only been shown to have plagiarised dozens of passages in his PhD thesis and other academic work without attributing them, but to have made a mind-boggling series of bogus claims about his supposed career as an endurance runner, a donor to charities, a victim of death threats, the author of a book that was never published, a star of the TV series Seven Up and as a visiting professor to universities which turn out never to have appointed him.
There’ve been so many revelations about his loose relationship with reality over the past few days that it’s been difficult to keep up, but those who seek a concise summary can find one here.
Arday’s downfall began with a blog last month that highlighted the verbatim similarities (aka rip-offs) between Arday’s work and the writings of others. It was published by the philosopher Nathan Cofnas, himself a victim of Cambridge cancel culture, fired from his post at Emmanuel College when his views on DEI were deemed “incompatible” with its “core values and mission”. (Nathan, whose case is backed by the FSU, is currently waiting to learn whether he will be granted permission to appeal against a county court ruling against his claim his dismissal was unfair.)
Kudos to Nathan for breaking such a significant story. But if Arday had been less aggressive in his efforts to suppress the truth, it would have surfaced much sooner, in the autumn of last year, when the Times Higher Education reporter Jack Grove researched it – only to see his story spiked after his editors received a threat to sue by lawyers acting for Arday, the fearsome defamation specialists Carter-Ruck.
Unbeknown to Jack – who happens to be a member of the FSU – Arday had also made a complaint to the police, claiming to be a victim of criminal harassment after Jack sent him an email asking him entirely legitimate questions, as journalists invariably do when researching articles of this kind.
The Metropolitan Police took it seriously, and began an investigation. It was not for another four months that they contacted Jack and told him he wouldn’t be charged. Yet the officer who phoned him also warned him not to contact Arday again because his mental health had, allegedly, been affected by the questions.
Meanwhile, the Met had passed on a separate complaint from Arday to the Devon and Cornwall police about Professor David Harris, an academic in Plymouth who had also been examining Arday’s record. Unlike the Met, they immediately dismissed it.
The Met now admits its investigation was a “mistake”, but the FSU’s Director Lord Young has written to the Commissioner, Sir Mark Rowley, demanding an explanation and pointing out that “telling a journalist to stop making lawful inquiries of a public figure under investigation for potential professional misconduct is not safeguarding – it is press censorship.”
We can’t wait to see the reply.
source ntkp.substack.com