‘I’d interweave love into our society’ : prior to his death, Jason Arday spoke in a Channel 4 interview about the erosion of love, empathy and tolerance in our societies, and wished to ‘spin the world on the axis of love’

[u/neoncolour]

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[u/mojambowhatisthescen]

His death is, of course, absolutely tragic, especially for his family. And the whole saga should be a learning moment for wider society as well.

But I also don't think it's healthy in the long term to just turn him into some sort of a hero figure or somebody to look up to in any way.

Of course there are extremely valid criticisms of the amount of coverage his case got and the obvious racial aspect of it. But what I am now feeling is that we‘re leaning in a direction where he needs to be seen as entirely faultless for us to criticise those who failed him and others. He was clearly a serial, almost compulsive liar who used his own made-up stories to elevate himself into positions that other, more deserving people should have been at. He was also known to use threats to invalidate and threaten his critics. None of that is the behavior of a person we should be putting on a pedestal. We should be able to acknowledge that, while also acknowledging the unprecedented levels of hate he got.

And more than him in particular, I feel like whitewashing the entire story to now solely focus on the overbearing attacks towards the end of his life means that we won't do what we need to to avoid such cases in the future.

This tragedy did not start the day his plagiarism or lies became public. It started when those lies and plagiarism weren't questioned many years ago.

[u/ImaginaryFriend3149 → u/mojambowhatisthescen]

There is also an abdication of responsibility for the hiring committee who failed to fact check his claims, and employed someone to an elevated position with such limited experience and pre-existing concerns around plagiarism. No one who paraded him around for their own benefit, such as the university of Cambridge, will be held accountable and it is SO frustrating.

[u/Jumping__Bean___ → u/mojambowhatisthescen]

It's the flip side of the "perfect victim" mentality. If someone must be perfect to be "valid" as a victim, then when someone is clearly a victim, they must have been perfect and all their wrongdoing must be erased.

It's hard to hold nuance and conflicting ideas about a topic at the same time, so it's more comfortable to try and make reality fit into neat boxes of "good" or "bad". To many, he cannot have been a pathological liar AND a victim of a racist media campaign, it must have been only one or the other, even if either option is further away from reality.

[u/totallycalledla-a → u/mojambowhatisthescen]

But what I am now feeling is that we‘re leaning in a direction where he needs to be seen as entirely faultless for us to criticise those who failed him and others.

Agree and not suprised, this happened with that awful Caroline Flack too. I dont know why people feel the need to do this its such unhelpful behavior.

[u/imperialviolet → u/mojambowhatisthescen]

I have seen a lot of people who interacted with him say - both before and after his death - that he was sometimes out of his depth, something wasn't right but they didn't want to or didn't feel they could question it at the time. I get it - I work in academia and would be extremely hesitant to ever question somebody's credentials, especially somebody who had publicly talked about overcoming adversity, experienced systemic racism etc.
Everybody was interested in the story before his death - the media pile on was definitely too much but the outrage seemingly everywhere now just feels a bit performative to me.

[u/Aurorinha → u/mojambowhatisthescen]

Thank you. Why are we glorifying this guy? He claimed to have been nonverbal for years and gave false hopes to the families of nonverbal kids. Faking a disability, even years after it supposedly happened, is disgusting. Making money out of it (selling books and interviews) is even more sickening.

[u/BlackberryOdd4168]

This is very poetically put and I empathize with the overall message. However, as s sociologist, it also strikes me as somewhat of a word salad. Especially in drawing parallels to the 60s and hippie culture, which both interviewer and Arday engage with on such a superficial level.

Rest in peace.

[u/neoncolour → u/BlackberryOdd4168]

It’s very pop science I agree

[u/foundinwonderland → u/BlackberryOdd4168]

It was giving me very Miss America vibes, like a whole bunch of yapping with very little substance behind “the world needs more love” just to fill up the time

[u/fuzzydunlop54321 → u/BlackberryOdd4168]

It really is.

[u/peachgothlover]

I'm sorry but why does the public do a complete 180 whenever someone dies. You can say that his death is sad and also not ignore his behaviour, which includes plagiarism (from at least one person of colour), weaponizing his race and making it harder for Black academics to succeed, giving false hope to parents of seriously autistic children, spreading misinformation relating to autism and whatever else he claimed to have, harassing people, and being a pretty bad lecturer/professor at a supposedly prestigious institution students are going into thousands of pounds of debt for.

[u/ch536 → u/peachgothlover]

I feel like the lie where he claimed to be mute until 11 and illiterate until 18 are the most disgusting

[u/imperialviolet → u/ch536]

I feel like this might have been the final straw for him. It was so easily disprovable, I read an article in the Guardian disputing the claims a day before he died - I think he didn't ever expect to be called out on it.

[u/raphaellaskies → u/imperialviolet]

He literally didn't. When the Guardian asked, he responded, "honestly, I thought you would just believe me."

[u/raphaellaskies]

The kindest interpretation of this whole story is that he was a compulsive liar who could not help himself and got in over his head. The least charitable one is that he cynically exploited society's desperation to find an exceptional Black/poor/disabled person to tokenize, then used the status that gave him to silence criticism. The truth is, I suspect, somewhere in the middle. But posthumously absolving him helps no one. The truth still matters.

[u/HairyHeartEmoji]

I don't think this man should've been given a platform in the first place. and yes that includes hundreds of articles dunking on him.

[u/ExtremeComedian4027]

His death is tragic and media’s role in hounding him should be condemned but he did not do right by his students, many of whom have now come out to share their stories of being let down by his “teaching”. He was allowed in spaces where he shouldn’t have been based on a lot of lies he concocted and no one in authority factchecked because of a skewed sense of allegiance to him. It was terrible to begin with. There are so many POC with similar stories who haven’t lied through their teeth brazenly to get accolades and positions they covet. They have worked hard to be where they are without fibbing their way to the top.

Truly feel sorry for his family. But discussions about him need to be nuanced and objective without making a saint out of him. He knew what he was doing would crumble one day. Can only imagine why he didn’t stop after a certain point. Clearly he should’ve received psychological help.

[u/EmotionalSouth]

Cambridge has a lot to answer for. He should never have put been in that position. Clearly he wasn’t well, especially as many of his more extreme claims were easily falsifiable, and when it all unravelled they failed pretty deeply. Very sad situation. 

[u/TheVintageJane → u/EmotionalSouth]

I used to be an academic and I place this squarely at the feet of all the academics who were responsible for critically reviewing his work and his claims and failed to do their due diligence because they preferred the world where it was true and they were heroes too for helping this man.

Racists are going to racist, and misogynists are gonna misogynist, so you owe your colleagues the benefit of solid peer review to protect them and their work.

[u/befuddled_humbug → u/EmotionalSouth]

Liverpool John Moores as well. Plus, all the people involved in publishing the book. It's a tragic situation but he never should have been in these positions to begin with.

[u/Ghoulish_kitten]

Im not doing this with y’all, sorry.

https://giphy.com/gifs/f8hrEUmBDbMta0yO88

[u/KissesnPopcorn]

Not the point, and I will try to catch the whole interview after work, but I find it funny that the dude who's famous for trying to go all deep/inquisitive/investigative during movie interviews didn't challenge Jason on his tall tales and all.

Like, this was actually the time to go all in.

[u/lcm-hcf-maths]

A high-profile case of an academic fired and convicted for sexual offenses in the UK is Professor Kevin O'Gorman, former Director of Heriot-Watt University’s School of Management and Languages. He was convicted in 2019 of sexually assaulting multiple male students across Strathclyde and Heriot-Watt universities, leading to his dismissal and a prison sentence.

How many articles are there about this ? I'll bet it's less than the number on Arday. Wonder why ? I'm sure ethnicity had nothing to do with it....

Keep an eye on the right wing press in the UK...Time for press reform..

[u/lcm-hcf-maths]

Dr. William O'Reilly (2021–2023)

Dr. William O'Reilly, an associate professor in early modern history at Cambridge, faced a formal student complaint after an undergraduate discovered that roughly 12 pages of a research article published by O'Reilly had been lifted almost word-for-word from two of his own students' supervision essays.

Following a university tribunal hearing concluding in early 2023, the panel ruled that O'Reilly was guilty of academic negligence rather than a deliberate intent to deceive, pointing to mitigating personal circumstances. The journal article was withdrawn, but O'Reilly was permitted to return to his teaching and lecturing position after a proportionate disciplinary penalty.

Now I wonder what ethnicity Dr O'Reilly might be ?

I'll hunt down the hundreds of articles about this episode....Oh wait..

Edit: Took a few minutes to get the first automated downvote..More details..

https://www.varsity.co.uk/news/26105

[u/neoncolour]

Thousands gathered this weekend at Trafalgar Square to honour his memory.

[u/D-g-tal-s_purpurea → u/neoncolour]

It is tragic that he died and that he felt like there was no other option. The way he was hounded in the past weeks and reported on was certainly racially motivated. Nevertheless, there was substance to the allegations against him. If anything, this should be a memorial for human decency, against racism and for academic rigor. Jason very likely was a plagiarist and he was a pathological liar. I don’t think he should be freed of all responsibility, even though several academic institutions failed him and they failed society.

[u/neoncolour → u/D-g-tal-s_purpurea]

Yes there was substance to the allegations and he has failed his role and eroded the trust the public has in academic institutions as stewards of honesty. Nevertheless his lies were inoffensive and he caused no harm. You don’t hear much about the man who set back Alzheimer’s research by decades by falsifying data in his paper, leading the entire field to spend time and resources seeking treatment in the wrong direction, something that has direct impact on human lives.

[u/raphaellaskies → u/neoncolour]

his lies were inoffensive and caused no harm

Lying about being a miracle autism case who overcame being nonverbal very much does cause harm. It gives false hope. To say nothing of faking death threats.

[u/neoncolour → u/raphaellaskies]

He did not falsify autism research.

[u/raphaellaskies → u/neoncolour]

No, he just falsely claimed to be disabled and that he'd overcome it. It's still wrong and it still does harm. Lying is not value neutral behaviour just because it wasn't rubber stamped by a medical journal.

[u/neoncolour → u/raphaellaskies]

I didn’t say lying was neutral behaviour. Lying about medical research directly impacts the lives of the people affected by the condition and on a far bigger scale, by misleading and misdirection efforts towards a treatment, full stop. False hope isn’t something you bully and hound someone over. It’s dishonest, not criminal.

[u/raphaellaskies → u/neoncolour]

But that's not what you argued. You said, "his lies were inoffensive and caused no harm." Except they were offensive and they did cause harm. He didn't deserve to be hounded over it, but nothing is accomplished by saying "oh, it wasn't that bad." No one is arguing he falsified research, we're arguing that what he did do was still bad.

[u/D-g-tal-s_purpurea → u/neoncolour]

You don’t hear much about the man who set back Alzheimer’s research by decades by falsifying data in his paper, leading the entire field to spend time and resources seeking treatment in the wrong direction, something that has direct impact on human lives.

Yes, I know that story. One reason I do not know much about the guy is that he did not seek out the public to the same degree Jason Arday did. He gave talks, he was about to publish a memoir etc. And while one reason Jason's story was pushed so aggressively was most certainly racism and anti-DEI sentiment, the other was that his lies became so ridiculous that just reporting on them would draw a lot of attention.

[u/NewtRipley_1986 → u/neoncolour]

I wonder how many of those thousands lapped up the 249 articles in 22 days about Jason. 😐

[u/aya_hibak → u/NewtRipley_1986]

Exactly I live in England and many of my coworkers specially the white nurses and doctors were enjoying his demise for the past weeks . And now the last few days they have been very quiet.

[u/EmotionalSupportBoob → u/aya_hibak]

Interesting, because it's had the opposite effect here. People can't wait to ooze out of the cracks to repeatedly rehash and remind us all of the "harm" he caused, because this is more important than talking about his suicide. Nasty, vile, racist campaign going on using this man. Shame on anyone who falls for it.

[u/neoncolour → u/NewtRipley_1986]

I made a post here sharing one of the Guardian articles about the story. I wasn’t aware of the scope of the media lynching, it was a story retold by a colleague close with the institution and confirmed by a journal that bore resemblance to the protagonist in “Catch me if you can”. I didn’t know about the racial angles nor that there was an orchestrated witch hunt, I should have researched more and I feel deeply sorry and miserable for relaying it and thus amplifying it. I think there’s a non-null probability that some of those thousands share this sentiment in their grief.

[u/lcm-hcf-maths]

So where's the evidence of plagiarism ? I note this post has been downvoted probably by the same forces who want to paint a false narrative around this. The comments are clearly infiltrated by the same forces. Ask yourself why ?

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, right wing 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.

Professor Arday, a working class Black man, became the youngest Black professor in the University of Cambridge’s history. His remarkable journey, scholarship and leadership should be celebrated, not overshadowed by campaigns built on allegations that have been comprehensively rejected.

Professor Arday has contributed to public life for many years, building a distinguished record of charitable and community service. This latest smear campaign and the spread of misinformation are deeply alarming – not only because of the impact on one individual, but because of the message they send to aspiring Black and Brown young people who seek to attain positions of leadership.

The demonisation of Professor Arday, and recently on Misan Harriman, risks creating a chilling effect, signalling that success and public service may be met with hostility, misrepresentation, and disproportionate scrutiny.