The tragedy of Jason Arday

0:00The biggest story in Britain today is Harry and Meghan are coming back. Were you silent or were you silence? The biggest story in Britain a few weeks ago was the new prime minister. We may be a small country, but we're a great one too. But in between those two big stories, the biggest story in Britain was Cambridge professor Jason Arde. You've either no idea who he is or you've been inundated with takes and vitriol. His story went from a curiosity to a tragedy within the space of just a few weeks. And how you might feel about it will likely depend on how you see the world and things like DEI and affirmative action and systemic racism.

0:46But no matter what your vantage or worldview, we could all learn something from what happened to Jason Arde. So we're going to spend some time with this story on Today Explained.

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1:17Today is going to be explained to you. I'm Sean Ramos from, joined by Richard Adams, who's the education editor at The Guardian, which means he covers Cambridge. Well, Cambridge is one of the world's elite universities, and it has been for approximately several hundred years. And then in 2023, it appointed Jason Arday as a professor of sociology of education. And when they made the announcement, they made a great deal of the facts, quite rightly, that he was very young, he was 37, and that he was black British, and he was the youngest black person to be appointed as a professor in Cambridge's history.

2:08And indeed, given the relatively small number of black British professors in the British higher education system, that in itself was pretty unusual. But the fact that it was at Cambridge made it even more newsworthy because Cambridge and Oxford University are regarded as the two sort of centers of excellence in the British education system and indeed in university education around the world. I guess before we talk about how his story unravels, we should talk about his backstory and what made his hiring and appointment so exceptional. His life story is even more exceptional. He was said to be nonverbal up until the age of 11 and then functionally illiterate until the age of 18.

3:02I always felt it was a privilege to have a period of 11 years where maybe I couldn't speak and I couldn't converse in a way that everyone else could because it allowed me to see things in a different way. And despite that, went on to further study. and eventually by 2015 he gains a PhD from a university in Liverpool. You said to me like you know it would be the greatest story in the world if the kid who didn't know how to read and write managed to get a PhD and you said like I think you know we can take on the world or you can take on the world and you can win. And then he goes on a succession of jobs in academia in the UK And he works his way up the sort of hierarchy of British academia.

3:51And then he gets the job in 2023 at the University of Cambridge. History is being made at the University of Cambridge. The British institution has appointed its youngest black professor ever. The 37-year-old has achieved what was once seemingly impossible. And so in the space of seven to eight years since getting his PhD, he has risen very rapidly through the academic hierarchy and ends up at its pinnacle. So when does Professor Arde's story start to unravel? Is it immediate or does it happen over time? Well, in terms of what we know publicly, it starts to unravel pretty recently. But in terms of what we know now was going on behind the scenes, people raised concerns with the University of Cambridge soon after his appointment.

4:49And those concerns were firstly that his body of work was relatively insubstantial. And then people began to look more closely at some of the papers he had published. And then allegations of plagiarism began to appear and that the Cambridge University are being privately warned or questioned about this. This sociology professor, now 41, has been accused of plagiarism. A string of allegations regarding plagiarism and tall tales raised questions about himself, Cambridge University and higher learning in general. These were raised both with the University of Cambridge and with the university that awarded his thesis.

5:33And they were investigated. At the same time, Ade was preparing to publish a memoir, which has been published in the US already by an imprint of Simon & Schuster. And so then in the last few weeks, a number of stories came out about Jason Ade's academic past, but also a number of the claims he had made himself about his own life. Now today, the memoir version of all of his tall tales comes out, including new claims about a suicide attempt, a new form of cancer to add to his existing list of cancers that he has apparently overcome, and much, much more. He claims that he had a brain tumour when he was writing his PhD and lost his memory just before his visa and had to relearn his thesis.

6:24And those began to be examined in greater detail than they had previously. What does the media actually find in its reporting of Jason Arday? Does his entire story fall apart? We can make a division between the academic side, plagiarism and the relatively slim amount of research that he produced, and the claims he made in his life story. He also made a number of really eye-opening claims about long-distance running, for example. He claimed at one point to have run 600 miles in the space of six days. And when this was queried and pointed out that this would be, you know, amongst some of the most extraordinary fleets of endurance by anyone, He then changed that claim to be over 12 days.

7:22And there was an earlier claim that he had run 30 marathons in 35 days. And then people would come back to him and say, well, you know, can you prove this? And in most cases, he wasn't able to. He also made a number of claims that he had been targeted. And I'm sure that that was true to some extent, that since he'd been appointed to Cambridge, He'd been the target of racist abuse. So he claimed, for example, that he was confronted by a masked intruder in his Cambridge office. And he told, he formed a university of this. So they installed security cameras and a panic button and extra, you know, security apparatus.

8:05And he then claimed that masked man had reappeared with a knife, telling him to resign his position or that he would be killed. But none of this was captured on any of the security cameras or there were no witnesses.

8:24And Cambridge has his back until they don't. What happens to change its mind? His original university did look at the plagiarism accusations and they did confirm his PhD. So from Cambridge's point of view, he still had a PhD. And they did defend him. And then something changed. And they put out a statement saying they were going to conduct an internal investigation into his appointment. And they said that they received new information, was the phrase that they used, around his CV, his resume. They didn't reveal what that was. And we still don't know. and very shortly after, in fact, a minute after the public announcement of that investigation, Jason O'Day announced that he was resigning from his post at Cambridge because he said the pressure was getting too much and it was too much for his family and for himself.

9:21And so he was stepping away. 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 a decision of someone who has reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure. And in some respects, that should have been the end of it. But of course, for some parts of the media that just encouraged, well, obviously, it sort of justified a lot of the earlier coverage that they had given. I spoke to many academics at Cambridge who were very angry at the way the university handled it.

10:04They felt that they had exposed Jason Arday to a torrent of racist abuse, that they'd put him in a position and they hadn't really supported him sufficiently. The university denies this, says they'd given him support all the way along. And then on Friday, a few days later, he's found in his home dead. Jason Arday, who was Cambridge University's youngest black professor ever, has been found dead a week after he resigned amid plagiarism allegations. Investigators say the circumstances of the 41-year-old's death do not appear to be suspicious. Arday's family said they were in shock and awe to have lost him, that a, quote, campaign of misinformation was too much for someone they described as a gentleman who wanted to see the best in everyone.

10:53We contacted all sorts of outlets in the UK, and it was amazing. A lot of people said, you know, we're not talking about this story anymore. We don't want to talk about it. We're going to take a break from this story. Do you think, I mean, did the British press learn something from the way they jumped on this story, do you think? Is it too early to say still? I'll just say I've been a journalist for a long time. And the history of the British media is from time to time, I don't mean to be flippant, I mean someone died and that's really incredibly sad. but there have been similar cases of people who for one reason or another have been pursued by the media and where the pressure gets too much for them and in my role as a journalist I've attended a number of inquests and one of the things I would say is one of the things you learn from that is that there's never a clear reason Even when it looks like there's a clear reason, there's never a clear reason.

12:05It's always the minutiae of individual lives are messy and uncertain and unclear. So although it's very tempting to sit outside it and say, well, that's the reason, it's never that straightforward.

12:24It's an incredibly sad story. It's not a story anybody wants to write or be involved in. It's one thing to write about, you know, someone who's embellished their CV and made exaggerations and so on. It's another thing to write about their death. And, you know, that moves it from an interesting story to a tragedy. Thank you. evaluations, diagnosis, disease, and ongoing medication management for conditions such as ADHD, anxiety, depression, bipolar, OCD, PTSD, insomnia, so much more. You get to meet with a medical provider who can diagnose mental health conditions and prescribe you medication when it's needed.

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16:35This is Today Explained. Tyler Austin Harper. I'm a staff writer for The Atlantic, and I co-host the podcast Time to Say Goodbye. For The Atlantic, you wrote that everyone following this story would do well to engage in some reflection. I don't think everyone following this story necessarily feels like they should be engaging in some reflection. So I wanted to ask you why you wanted to convey that thought. Yeah, I would say blame is not a finite resource. And I think there's plenty of it to go around in this case in particular. I think blame that belongs to conservatives and that belongs to Republicans and that belongs to various kinds of institutions.

17:11And that, of course, belongs to Jason Arde, the man. Right. I think this is a person who is clearly a serial fabulous. And I think one could fairly say a con artist who was able to, through an increasingly implausible array of stories about his background, that he was mute until age 11, that he was illiterate till age 18, that he ran 600 miles in six days, a feat which is just 50 miles shy of a world record. Right. Was able to flatter the vanities of people at Cambridge University who were very desperate to get a magical minority in the door. Right. And they were so hell bent on their desire to engage in diversity politics that they overlooked what should have been very obvious flaws.

17:54Right. I think it's also true simultaneously, though, that you cannot just blame our day or liberal institutions for this and particularly for how this ended. Right. This was it's worth noting a an academic scandal that on the order of academic scandals is not one that perhaps should be international news. But that's very much what it became in no small part because the British press turbocharged it. If you look at any major British outlet, there were many, many, many, many articles written, each one chronicling every minute of this entire affair. Right. And I think it's worth noting that it's hard to imagine that this degree of scrutiny would be applied to an academic scandal if Jason Arday had been white.

18:35It's also hard to imagine that Jason Arday would have been hired if he was white. I think people would have asked more questions about his implausible claims if they weren't so predisposed to just try to get him in the door. Yeah, I mean, it sounds like a brief list of those directions that you just laid out there was Arday himself, the institutions that hired him, that published him, and certainly the media. Let's just go through them. I mean, start with Arday. Like, what was it that compelled this individual to make up so much of his backstory? Yeah, I think that's a good question. It's hard to know what's inside his mind, but one imagines that he correctly understood that a certain kind of elite liberal would be very willing to overlook quite a lot and that would be willing to swallow a whole lot of implausibilities to get him in the door.

19:31And I think he understood how the system works. One of my frustrations with the way discourse of the story has unfolded, particularly after his tragic death, is he is being treated as somebody with no agency. And I think Arde, if you look at what he did, was clearly relatively savvy, right? He understood that there was a market, that he was being branded as the youngest black professor in the 800-year history of Cambridge. And he fabricated a story that told people what they wanted to hear. Not only was he black coming from rough circumstances, but he was disabled. He was severely autistic. He had this miraculous recovery.

20:07Also, all sorts of medical ailments. He survived a brain tumor, testicular cancer, epilepsy, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Right. So he clearly knew how the game was played. He knew that he could leverage these various identity claims and service of advancement, which is what happened. And so, yeah, clearly a savvy guy who was more than capable of pressing his advantage as he understood it.

20:32The story was not nearly as big in the United States as it was in the UK, understandably. But as you said earlier, a lot of people want to place blame for our day's death on the British press, including American Ibram X. Kendi, who said he was, quote, lynched by the media. Yeah. Do you think that's going too far? I think it's going way too far. I think, first of all, there are a few things I find more grotesque, at least in terms of everyday discourse, than treating lynching as a metaphor, which is something I think you see quite a lot. I think anyone who has seen a hanging tree knows that throwing the term around lynching for mere journalistic scrutiny, I think, is vile beyond measure.

21:16I also think, look, was the British press, was the scrutiny far too intense? Yes. Do I think it was racist in the sense of I have a hard time imagining there would be this much scrutiny on a white academic who did the same thing? Yes, I think you can absolutely say that. But to me, there is a there is a question about, OK, what is the line between appropriate journalistic scrutiny and obsession? But I also think it's worth noting, to be fair to the British press, right, they are responding to the way in which he was marketed to them nationally. He was marketed by Cambridge as the youngest black professor in the 800 year history of this very venerable institution.

21:56Right. And so to some extent, when you when you brand someone that way, when you film BBC specials with, you know, a close up on his black hands nestled in the white ones of the head of the faculty of education. Right. I think some degree of scrutiny is warranted. Hey, so nice to see you. Here's his new boss at Cambridge. We do have a lot of work to do, but I feel really optimistic. There will be those. I think this is a tokenistic appointment. What are your thoughts on this? The board of electors on your interview day were absolutely unanimous. We are so lucky to have you. You are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do.

22:40I think it was excessive. But at the same time, Jason Arday was a public figure. I think it is fair to say his memoir is well poised to make a splash. Right. And he took this position that made him a minor academic celebrity. And again, I think it's very fair to ask whether the degree of attention on what is ultimately an academic scandal in which no one was hurt was far too much. But the idea that we would place the blame on the media rather than on Simon and Schuster, who clearly overlooked obvious inconsistencies in his story and Cambridge, I find that I find that absurd. I think we need to blame the people who put him on the mountaintop rather than the people who ripped him down it, even as I think some of those people putting attention to him were unscrupulous.

23:25In your piece of The Atlantic, I thought you kind of bravely related your own experience to that of Jason Arde. Did that come naturally to you or did you have to hold your breath? Well, look, I am a black guy who has been the beneficiary of various kinds of DEI and affirmative action initiatives. And I certainly have encountered a certain kind of white liberal who is very eager to metaphorically grasp my black hands and their white ones and stare lovingly into my eyes like the Cambridge Faculty of Education person did. Right. So I I had some degree of sympathy with him. And look, I find those kinds of encounters revolting.

24:05But I also can understand from Arde's point of view, coming from a relatively disadvantaged background, he's a children of immigrants, then you have all of these people paying attention to you, showering you in accolades, right? And I think fetishizing you, but it probably didn't seem that way to him, right? And you tell a small lie. And maybe that small lie then becomes a bigger lie, and then a bigger lie and a bigger lie and a bigger lie and a bigger lie, right? And so, look, what he did was wrong, but I can imagine the kind of incentive structure he saw laid out before him. And it's not hard to see that he made a decision that could in some sense be understood as, yes, self-serving, but also giving people what they wanted, right?

24:43Do you think we'll learn anything from it? No. I think people have retreated into their camps. I think progressives are blaming the media for doing what I've seen thrown around as a digital lynching. I think conservatives are blaming academic institutions or Jason Arde or just gleefully basking in the glow of having torn this guy down a peg. I haven't seen a single lesson really learned. I think I've seen a lot of blame being apportioned. I don't think there's much reflection about whether or not these policies are good or bad. The kind of policies or the kinds of extremist versions of affirmative action, I think, that go well beyond the spirit of what most people understand as affirmative action being about.

25:25But whether those kinds of initiatives are good, whether whether the press scrutiny was fair, I just I don't see a lot of self-reflection. I see a lot of blame. And even as I'm wanting to say, there's lots of people to blame. I also think we should be a little more self-critical, right? Like my first impulse on learning the Jason Arde affair was to find it somewhat amusing. I will be honest, right? Here was this guy who managed to tell all of these obvious lies. And these very, very smart people believe the hook, line and sinker. It was objectively funny, right? But it became unfunny very quickly.

26:01And so I think, like I said in the piece, we could all stand to do some reflection about how we ended up in this situation, how Jason Arde ended up in this situation. But will that reflection happen? I highly doubt it. We can always hope.

26:24Dustin DeSoto produced today's show Miranda Kennedy edited Patrick Boyd and David Tadishore mixed and Gabriel Donatov told the truth for Today Explained