The chancellor of Cambridge University has condemned what he called a Jason Arday racist feeding frenzy, after the professor was found dead following weeks of media coverage over plagiarism allegations. Lord Chris Smith spoke publicly for the first time following Arday’s death, saying it was possible to uphold academic integrity while rejecting the treatment Arday received.
‘I do believe it is possible to hold to two principles at the same time: to believe in the importance of academic integrity, and where criticisms of plagiarism arise, about any academic, whoever they are, ensure that they are rigorously investigated,’ Lord Smith said in a statement. ‘And also to refuse to join in a racist feeding frenzy over a particular academic.’
Arday, 41, was found dead at an address in Battersea, south London, on Friday. He had resigned as a Cambridge professor on 5 August but stressed his resignation should not ‘be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me’. According to The Straits Times, Arday resigned from Cambridge and Jesus College earlier in August.
Plagiarism allegations and the Jason Arday racist feeding frenzy
Arday became Cambridge’s youngest black professor when appointed in 2023. He faced weeks of media coverage after Nathan Cofnas, a self-defined ‘race realist’ whose own Cambridge post was terminated in 2024 amid a backlash to his views, publicly alleged in July that Arday’s academic work contained numerous instances of plagiarism. Arday denied the claims.
According to the Times of India, British media subsequently published reports alleging that more than 100 passages in Arday’s 2015 doctoral thesis were identical or closely similar to earlier work. Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded Arday his PhD in 2015, concluded that he had not plagiarised work. Cambridge initially said claims regarding his thesis and some journal publications had been investigated by the university and the journals in question. Last week, however, Cambridge announced an independent investigation into his appointment.
Separate questions were also raised about personal claims Arday had made. A 2010 JustGiving page showed it had raised £6,285 for two charities, according to Tech Times, contradicting claims of raising more than £5 million for charity.
Political reaction and calls for an inquiry
Over 30,000 people, including Diane Abbott and Jameela Jamil, have signed a Good Law Project petition seeking an inquiry into the coverage of Arday. The petition states his death followed ‘two weeks of relentless harassment’.
Sir James Cleverly, the shadow housing secretary, said he was angry with the situation. He told the BBC’s Today programme he felt Arday was used as ‘bragging rights by some universities’, with people speaking of his ‘age and his ethnicity rather than his talent’. Sir James, who was Britain’s first black home secretary and foreign secretary, said much of the coverage was ‘quite possibly’ motivated by racism, but that questions over plagiarism were legitimate regardless of motivation.
‘I think it was part of the reason that he was lifted so high so quickly and then when the scrutiny did come, his reputation had so far to fall. I think it was unfair on him and I think it’s been a terrible, terrible situation,’ Sir James said.
Housing minister Matthew Pennycook, asked whether the press had behaved poorly, echoed comments by the prime minister that it was not the time to ‘rush to judgement on this’. He said the events leading up to Arday’s death raised questions about duty of care and the nature of modern media scrutiny but added: ‘I certainly don’t intend to sit here and opine on them myself.’ Pennycook described the situation as ‘desperately, desperately sad’.
Only 1% of professors in UK universities are black, making each appointment highly visible within academia. Cambridge had celebrated Arday’s appointment as one of a tiny minority of black professors in the sector.
Cofnas’s post had been terminated amid a backlash to his view that, under what he described as a true meritocracy, black people would ‘disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment’.
A vigil organised by the group Stand Up To Racism was set to take place on Monday evening in Trafalgar Square. On Sunday, more than 200 people attended a vigil at Cambridge organised by Arday’s postdoctoral students. The Good Law Project petition calling for a public inquiry into the coverage of Arday, which framed his death as following the Jason Arday racist feeding frenzy described by Lord Smith, continued to gather signatures.
