The Jason Arday story: A modern day parable

The fantasist professor Jason Arday has finally resigned.

What started as a plagiarism row has escalated into a full-blown saga, as fantastical claims made by Cambridge's youngest black professor came under scrutiny. James Hanson runs you through the story.

The University of Cambridge has confirmed it will continue investigating a professor who resigned amid a plagiarism row, adding that findings will feed into a review of the process for appointing senior academic roles.

Professor Jason Arday quit his high-profile role at the prestigious university on Wednesday after it launched a probe into his “academic qualifications and honorary appointments”.

Senior dons at Cambridge are understood to be circulating a letter calling for an inquiry into the processes around his appointment, according to the Guardian.

Prof Arday’s resignation followed a series of media reports alleging he plagiarised his PhD thesis – completed at Liverpool John Moores University – and other research.

Further questions were asked in the press about the truth of other claims made by the professor of sociology of education, who became Cambridge’s youngest black professor in 2023, including saying that he ran 600 miles in six days and that he had raised £5.5 million for charity.

In a statement on Friday, Cambridge said: “As has been widely reported, Jason Arday has resigned from his post at the university with immediate effect.

“Regardless of this, and for clarification, the university will continue to investigate the circumstances around Jason Arday’s appointment and tenure. The findings will feed into a review of the process for the appointment of senior academic roles.

“In addition, and as previously stated, the university’s Research Policy Committee will review the misconduct in research policy.”

Jesus College said previously that it was launching its own process in relation to the allegation.

An investigation at Liverpool John Moores University cleared Prof Arday of wrongdoing.

One of the academics calling for an inquiry, Priyamvada Gopal, told the Guardian: “An independent investigation must scrutinise how such an early-career appointment to a very senior and prestigious professorial chair was made and what both the faculty of education and university management may have got very badly wrong.”

The professor of postcolonial studies at Cambridge’s English faculty added: “Whatever the results of any investigation, the university bears no little responsibility for the grotesque racism which this whole business has unleashed, and for the harm done both to the individual in the line of fire, to black academics as a group, and the broader field of critical race studies.”

In the wake of Prof Arday’s resignation, academics said his case will provide those who condemn diversity and equality initiatives with a “weapon” and put off other black scholars from the field.

Alan Lester, professor of historical geography at the University of Sussex, said: “The tragedy is that this case now provides the far-right racists who condemn any equalities and diversity initiatives with a weapon that they will wield egregiously.”

Kehinde Andrews, who was until recently professor of black studies at Birmingham City University, told Sky News: “No one’s handing out favours to black people in higher education, and that idea is deeply dangerous and deeply racist.

“There is a whole campaign to get more black professors in, but the experiences that we have tend to be horrendous and it does put people off from trying to even get into these places in the first place.”

Prof Arday said in his open resignation letter that the “only way to bring this chapter to an end is to step away”.

In the letter addressed to colleagues published on the Good Law Project’s website, he said: “This decision should not be interpreted as a loss of faith in scholarship or in the values that first brought me to Cambridge.

“Nor should it be mistaken for an acceptance of the narratives that have surrounded me.

“It is simply the decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.”

His memoir, Great And Unfortunate Things, is due to be published by Simon & Schuster later this month.

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