Jason Arday: A Story Too Good to Question

Cambridge, academic standards and the danger of placing identity-based narratives above truth

Photo by Jean-Luc Benazet on Unsplash

(Audio version here)

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A number of readers have now asked me to comment on the astonishing case of Cambridge professor Jason Arday, against whom accusations of very significant plagiarism have been made, alongside evidence of other blatant falsehoods. People think I might have something useful to say on this issue because Arday uses Critical Race Theory and other Critical theories of which I have long been critical and appears to have a very shaky relationship with the concept of truth, which I have argued to be a pervasive problem in these corners of academia. As one correspondent wrote, “The situation surely illustrates the contradictions inherent in social justice ideology with regard to truth-seeking.”

I have not weighed in on this issue so far, largely because I feel that the subject is being so thoroughly covered by other writers and commentators and the problems presented by it so widely perceived accurately (even the Guardian has acknowledged the seriousness of the accusations) that I have little to add. I admit to also feeling some measure of pity for Arday himself. Some of the claims made by him are so extravagant and so easily disproven—he claimed to have appeared in a television series that aired twenty years before he was born—that it seemed possible that something more psychiatrically complicated than ordinary dishonesty might be involved. It occurred to me that somebody exhibiting the same behaviour in a more obscure corner of academia might simply have been quietly removed from his post and referred to mental health services.

I continue to think that focusing on Arday as an individual is less useful than considering the failures of the epistemological systems around him: their failure to detect his unattributed borrowing from other people’s work, and to question the sheer volume of deeply implausible, if not impossible, claims he has made about his own achievements. Equally troubling are the fallacious arguments and motivated reasoning now shaping discussion of the case.

Is it likely that Arday’s chosen theoretical approach, Critical Race Theory, which includes postmodern approaches skeptical of objective truth and has ‘storytelling’ as a central feature is directly responsible for his own relationship with truth and fabulism? Probably not.

Theorists within CRT can rightly be criticised for presenting fictional stories which speak to perceptions and feelings of systemic racism rather than empirical research into it. For example, “The Space Traders” by Derrick Bell tells a story of aliens appearing in America to offer technology to fix America’s debt and pollution problems and provide abundant energy in exchange for all of its black citizens. A referendum returns an agreement to this deal and black Americans are taken away in chains. This story has been used to illustrate the belief that white American society, despite having made positive noises about racial equality, would actually sacrifice black Americans if it were in its interests to do so. This can sometimes be used almost as evidence for a positive claim to this effect, even though this event did not occur.

Is it possible that Arday is doing something along these lines? A story has developed around him of a black, autistic individual overcoming great odds—diagnosed with autism at three, he did not speak until he was eleven or learn to read and write until he was eighteen—to become Cambridge’s youngest black professor. Could his later claims to have completed six marathons in six days with a broken leg, pursued professional football and snooker careers, raised £5.5 million for charity, built wells in Africa and South America, while being sent animal corpses and threatened with knives by people who resent black people obtaining professorships represent an expansion of this story?

It is possible, yes. Arday’s forthcoming book, Great and Unfortunate Things, is a memoir of his life and has this theme. One reason that I did not comment on this issue before was that I thought it possible that Arday’s conception of himself as somebody who overcomes great hardship to achieve extraordinary things—possibly influenced by a neurodevelopmental disorder—had become so psychologically important that he had lost sight of what was true and what was fictional. This is pure speculation on my part, but it would be the maximally charitable interpretation. If so, he would be somebody requiring appropriate professional assessment and support, not a social-media pile-on.

This is not, however, the kind of storytelling found in Critical Race Theory. That acknowledges itself as storytelling and claims to express a form of experiential truth distinct from objective truth (although equally valid). Arday presented these achievements as factual and, when questioned about them, prevaricated, softened or recast the claims by supplying additional details, or simply reasserted that they were true and that doubt of this was motivated by bigotry. He has also used his racial and neurodivergent identity to frame questions about plagiarism as motivated by racism and ableism in an attempt to chill scholarly critique and questioning, including reporting a fellow academic to the police for harassment for raising the issue. This, understandably, chills critics’ willingness to be sympathetic.

More significant than anybody’s speculation about an individual’s possibly pathological conception of truth, however, is why his stories have been uncritically accepted within his department, his university and in activist circles and why academics raising concerns about plagiarism (which is extremely hard to deny and even includes reproducing the original work’s punctuation errors) were not taken seriously. This could certainly be related to a mindset among those who value identity-based theories derived from postmodern thought which favour politically and emotionally resonant narratives over objective truth! The initial reluctance on the part of Cambridge to investigate this properly is deeply troubling.

Equally concerning have been some of the politicised responses to this story, in which little regard has been paid to what is true. Some on the identitarian left have dismissed concerns about Arday’s apparent fabulism and scholarly misconduct as products of racism and ableism. While the Good Law Project described the plagiarism allegations as entirely false and baseless, others, such as the prominent Black Studies professor, Kehinde Andrews, have argued that such “exaggerations” are ubiquitous and that Arday has been singled out because he is black.

Simon Baron-Cohen, professor of developmental psychopathology, was criticised for appearing to argue that the media should not cover the allegations against such a high-profile academic because he is autistic and at an increased risk of suicide. Both Andrews and Baron-Cohen signed the Good Law Project’s petition asserting that the accusations were not true. Baron-Cohen, however, appears subsequently to have removed his name, after Cambridge announced new investigations into Arday’s qualifications and honorary appointments and confirmed that separate complaints of academic misconduct were already being considered.

This is unambiguously placing identity-based narratives above truth. It can only serve to undermine academia and principled activism against racism and ableist discrimination against autistic people.

It is not entirely unreasonable to be concerned about the motivations of those presenting evidence of Arday’s plagiarism and challenging his claimed achievements. Nearly all reports of the plagiarism allegations have stressed that Nathan Cofnas, the philosophy researcher who produced convincing evidence of it, had previously written that, under a true meritocracy, black people would “disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.” It is reasonable to consider the possibility that Cofnas continues to believe this hypothesis and has been seeking evidence that supports it.

This does not, in itself, invalidate the evidence he has presented concerning Arday specifically, or its possible implications for whether Arday earned his high-profile position legitimately. It is normal for scholars to investigate hypotheses they already consider plausible, including hypotheses that many people find deeply offensive. To reject evidence because one objects to the perceived motivations of the person presenting it is, again, to confuse truth with morality: “I object to what I perceive to be your motivation for presenting this evidence; therefore, I reject the evidence itself.” This is clearly fallacious reasoning.

The safeguards against scholars—or anyone else—seeking only to confirm beliefs they already hold include viewpoint diversity, openness to criticism and an expectation that people will change their minds when counter-evidence warrants it.

The incident has also prompted some deeply illiberal conclusions from the identitarian right, with certain social-media users interpreting it overwhelmingly through the lens of Arday’s race rather than his individual conduct. Some have implied that black people can obtain academic positions only by cheating because they lack the necessary intelligence and are invariably “DEI hires”; others have suggested that plagiarism is an inevitable consequence of an inherent dishonesty among black people. Such claims have, however, been scattered among comments from small social-media accounts and have been greatly outnumbered by criticisms of the institutions and left-wing activists for having created the environment and discourses that failed to recognise, dismissed or denied evidenced concerns about Arday’s scholarly integrity.

Some of these criticisms have also been expressed in hyperbolic language that condemns universities utterly and/or the entirety of ‘the left.’ However, serious criticisms remain and should be addressed seriously.

Why did Cambridge take so long to investigate concerns about academic misconduct raised by other academics, seemingly acting only after intense media pressure? Were those responsible for investigating genuinely convinced that the allegations formed part of a dishonest and racist right-wing campaign against black academics or scholars who used Critical Race Theory? Did this conviction prevent them from examining the evidence properly?

Were they intimidated by the social and cultural prestige of the Critical Social Justice movement and afraid of being accused of institutional racism themselves? Had Cambridge invested so heavily in the celebrated figure of Jason Arday and in its appointment of him as its youngest black professor that admitting error felt too embarrassing? Or were truth and academic rigour simply less important than maintaining the correct “social justice” narrative, which both Arday’s academic field and his personal story appeared to embody?

Will scholars and activists on the identitarian “woke” left accept any responsibility for this debacle? Will they acknowledge that a discourse in which prominent black or otherwise marginalised figures cannot be criticised or held to ordinary academic and professional standards without their critics risking accusations of prejudice and professional reprisals damages both the quality of those fields and public trust in them?

Will they consider that this does not remotely serve the people they claim to champion? It diminishes genuine individual excellence by casting suspicion on those who have earned their positions. It forces members of minority groups into political pigeonholes, denies the diversity of their views and subjects them to the soft bigotry of low expectations.

This cannot achieve social justice.