LONDON: Jason Arday, the Black former Cambridge university professor, has been found dead at his home after facing relentless public scrutiny and accusations of being a “DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) hire”.National Education Union general secretary Daniel Kebede said that Arday had been subjected to a “public and brutal takedown that unleashed a tirade of racism by the worst elements of the British media and right-wing commentariat”.The Metropolitan police said officers were called to Arday’s Battersea address just after 3 pm on Friday where he was found unresponsive. “His death is being treated as unexpected,” police said.The 41-year-old, who became Cambridge’s youngest black professor in 2023, resigned as a professor of sociology of education at the university on Aug 5 after Cambridge announced an investigation into his appointment.Originally, he was accused of plagiarising his PhD thesis at Liverpool John Moores University. But then other aspects of his life and achievements came under scrutiny.Upon resigning, Arday said: “The relentless accusations, speculation and public commentary have taken a profound toll on me.”Liverpool investigated the accusations of plagiarism in Feb and concluded it was not proven.But in a Substack post on July 21, US researcher Nathan Cofnas claimed he had run Arday’s 2015 PhD dissertation through a plagiarism-detection programme and found “substantial overlap with previously published work”. Cofnas concluded Arday had been “recruited to promote the ideology of DEI”. This led to a media frenzy questioning Arday’s career, achievements and qualifications.Friend Prof Simon Baron-Cohen spoke to Arday hours before he died. “Over the last few weeks since the plagiarism allegations came to national and international news, he was being subjected on an hourly basis to ridicule and humiliation. He told me on Friday morning he couldn’t leave his home as his face and name were now so well known that he was a figure of shame. He maintains he didn’t fabricate or lie,” he told the BBC. “He wasn’t coping with the loss of his career and reputation and he felt he couldn’t go on.”Jason believed there was a racist playbook to discredit black academics in universities, he added.“The campaign of misinformation was too much for Jason, who was a gentle man and always wanted to see the best in everyone,” his family said in a statement.
