Cambridge “Unleashed Racism” By Hiring Jason Arday

Uh in the media, August in Britain is known as silly season. Um the reason Parliament is in recess, there's less obvious news to report on, less political debates. Um and so more niche stories have to fill the gap and they take on added significance. Now, unfortunately for him at least, the story this week in silly season has been that of Jason Arday. Now, Ard, as I imagine you've all heard by now, um was a Cambridge academic in a prestigious role as professor of education. Um when he was appointed, he was celebrated as the youngest black professor in the university's history. But after extensive allegations of plagiarism, fabrication of data and invented backstories, um which all emerged sort of over the past fortnight, Arday has resigned. Now, the controversy is deeply embarrassing for Arday and for Cambridge University. But how newsworthy is it? Academic appointments at UK universities, even when they go horribly wrong, wouldn't usually make the inside of a national newspaper, let alone a front page. But this week, this story has been inescapable. Um, on Thursday, our day's resignation was the main story on the front page of the Telegraph. It was also on the front of the Times and the Guardian. And the Daily Mail declared in glee that the scandal the left dismissed as racism had led to Arday stepping down um from his job. It was also the top story on the BBC today for a while. Um the reference to the left dismissing concerns about our day so that you saw on the front page of the mail there. Um that was in part um a reference to a letter organized by the Good Law Project which was signed by academics, politicians and other public figures. Um perhaps most notably Zack Palansky. This was the video the Good Law Project shared to promote that letter. >> You might have not heard who Jason Ode is. Jason is the youngest black professor in Cambridge's history. And to the surprise of literally no one. From the start, newspapers like The Telegraph and the Times have been calling him a diversity poster boy and just overall annoying him. But now they're taking it a step further and they're trying to smear him with accusations of plagiarism. basically saying his work isn't his own and trying to discredit him. And it's really interesting because it doesn't matter that academic journals, universities, everybody that has looked into these claims has found no evidence of plagiarism whatsoever. The newspapers do not care and we have to talk about it. A baseless smear campaign against a distinguished black academic isn't just a personal attack. It's an attempt to shut down a black person who has a platform. Now that video I mean which has now been viewed sort of over two million times on social media has aged very badly. In fact that's why it's been viewed so many times because so many people are sharing it saying this has aged badly. Um the reason it's aged badly is because there was I mean we've all seen it now. There was a considerable overlap between Arday's work and that of others. Um there is also evidence of quotes from interviewees in his papers being either um fabricated we don't really know or mislabeled. There's clearly some inconsistencies there which sort of really puts into question the method used. Um and most famously are's backstory from running marathons with a broken leg to receiving pig heads in the post um have I mean seemingly fallen apart under scrutiny. And the Atlantic this week also had another damning piece comparing the unlikely events in his memoir set to be released next week in the US to the proposal he wrote for that memoir. and there are sort of some inconsistencies. So they say the proposal also lays out many of the same events as the memoir but with slightly different dates and details. The boys who beat him up were not his age but four years older. His suicide attempt happened before not during the pandemic. And whereas the book describes Arday as having survived two brain tumors, the proposal says he had a bout of testicular cancer. No reference to that illness appears in the memoir. Nor does the book describe the time that Ardeday, then a teenager, was struck by a car and spent several months in a coma. According to the book proposal, the doctors told his parents that he would never recover and suggested taking him off life support as an act of mercy. Through all of this, he was aware of everything that was going on because he had lockedin syndrome. As I will describe to readers in the book, Arde wrote in the proposal, "These MS afforded me another profoundly different way of perceiving the world." Um, they write, "The book doesn't describe any of this, nor that he awakened miraculously from the coma, nor the full the full year he spent relearning everything, how to walk, to talk. Instead, the memoir tells us only that he spent those months finishing his final year of secondary school and taking his exams." I was relieved, beyond relieved, the memoir says when those were done. Um, and the inconsistencies go on and on and on. Now, obviously, in a book proposal, if it's a bit different to the finished product, that's that that's fine. And if it's a book of work of fiction, you know, you might sort of change the stories to make it fit together nice. Obviously, also you might emphasize different things in the final addition to the proposal. But I mean, if you've got just huge, incredibly what would be like incredibly noteworthy events just appearing in one but not the other, it does it raises questions, clear inconsistencies, and they do go on and on if you go and read that article in the Atlantic. Um, now when Arday was first appointed as a Cambridge professor, it was his unlikely backstory that led to him being so celebrated. So that's why the backstory is is relevant. It's not just a sort of side note. Um, he had numerous puff pieces written about him and even guest edited an addition of the BBC today program. Um, so it's no wonder that the collapse of this story has elicited fascination, right? It's it's not a surprise that people find this interesting, especially as there sort of so many developments. It has also though led to a frenzy on the right which sees our day as ultimate proof of the folly of diversity, equity and inclusion and the attempt to make elite institutions more representative of society at large. Um it's an unfortunate situation to say the least and a group of Cambridge academics think their university is to blame. Um so their letter which made the front page of the Guardian on Friday accused Cambridge of unleashing grotesque racism um by the manner in which it appointed our day. So the group of Cambridge dons are calling for an independent inquiry into our day's appointment and a professor of postcolonial studies Priya Gopal um who is one of those organizing the letter um told the Guardian this an independent investigation must scrutinize 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 have got very badly wrong. 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. This requires accountability now from those responsible not. Um, so this letter, I suppose, is is written by people very much on the left, I think, or sort of who would define themselves as progressives who are saying that because they promoted someone who seems questionable and potentially underqualified, um, that's now putting their discipline and confidence in other black academics in doubt. Um, especially among those who have sort of been banging this drum for a while. Um, what's your thoughts on on this story, I suppose, in general. Banska, it >> it's a really sad situation, I think, and quite an ugly situation all around really. [clears throat] You know, I I can remember first hearing about Jason Aday several years ago. Um, I didn't really look into him massively, but I I knew he had this kind of very compelling um quite amazing, fantastical story. Obviously, now it turns out it was, you know, a bit too fantastical, right? That there are some glaring inconsistencies. And I think that Guardian piece on Monday um was the thing that finally when I locked in and read that I was like, "Okay, there's actually lots of things here that do not make sense." I think we've seen just time and time again. This is on replay now. Whether it's the murder of Henry Novak, whether it's the attempted murder that was in Belfast, whether it was what was going on with migrants in in, you know, the Moroccan Spain border last week, we've seen that the right is really able to do this thing where it takes a single story. It takes a singular moment and then spins a whole story out of it that actually feels quite coherent. I think there is a section of people who are going to look at this story that's now being spun out of this particular incident and thinking well damn may you know maybe maybe black academics are being overpromoted over white people. This is another example perhaps of the ways in which the tables are turning and you know we've gone too far. It's DEI gone gone mad as as you know as as the right often like to to frame it. If we pull out and look at the bigger picture, of course, we know that there's actually quite a lot of systemic um issues against black academics in in the field, you know, they hold under 1% of professor roles despite making up about 4% of the the population. So, they're under reppresented actually. Um but these singular stories, these singular moments that the right are very adapt um adept, pardon me, at latching on to and then kind of spinning a whole story out of, you know, they're very very good at good at doing that. And that leaves, I think rightly as Priya has has put in that letter her and her her colleagues, it leaves, you know, black academics vulnerable. There are now other black academics who are being questioned without any real basis as far as I can see. The likes of, you know, the popular historian David Lushoga, for example, is now being questioned online about his credibility as far as I know that no one's brought any evidence to suggest that that David Olesoga is not qualified to do the things that he's doing. So there's this very tangible material impact that is coming out of this which I think is incredibly worrying. Me and you have had conversations I think before about DEI and and a kind of leftist critique of DEI which I think is is missing. I think sometimes there are people maybe on the left who are a bit too scared to bring a critique of diversity initiatives that it's actually really really needed and in that vacuum there was a very good piece by Jason Akundai that we were talking about earlier and he really kind of laid out a view which I completely agree with as well which is that in that vacuum where the left refuses to have an alternative to these kind of liberal DEI solutions which deep down many black and brown people know are quite empty and are for show and aren't for ticking a box and not really about leveling the playing field in that vacuum. the right comes out to play and it plays hard. >> But I suppose the reason it's playing hard here >> and I know lots of them believe very unpleasant things but is because their critique was always that the attempt to diversify elite institutions is going to lead to um unqualified people hired because of their identity. And in this situation it does seem like an unqualified person was hired because of his identity. So I suppose do does one need to say okay some of the things you were saying you had a point or I mean how would you respond? >> Well I think it's about saying looking at these diversity initiatives and and and thinking about I suppose what the end goal was here because I think part of him is not just that he's hired because he's black suppose they could have pulled off pulled anybody off the street in that case they could have hired me. Um [laughter] but they hire him as well in part because of this kind of fantastical narrative and and story that he had, right? That really kind of captured headlines. Um really kind of made for a great grand story that I think really allowed the institution to be able to say, "Look at us. We're doing, you know, diversity. We've we're better. We're getting better with our representation. We're ticking those those kinds of of of boxes." And of course they they weren't. It's just it's just window dressing. There's actually I think at the heart of of some of this endeavor to do these kind of tickbox exercises. It's to me it's an outgrowth of individualism of saying here's this one individual this fantastic black excellence larger than life individual who's got this fantastic story. Never mind the fact that he he doesn't perhaps seem to actually be maybe very adept at the job itself. Let's raise him up and put him on a platform rather than actually looking at how we make equality better across the board for for everybody. And yeah, there's lots of issues in academia, not just with race, with class, with gender, lot, you know, loads of stuff. >> Let's um look at a clip because we do have some insight into his hiring because the BBC reported it on it at the time. You know, it's a very celebratory story. Isn't this brilliant? Um this was the head of our day's department speaking in 2023. >> We've listened to the voices of our black scholars and our black students. Um and some of it has not been easy to hear to be honest, but we're able to face up to some of the um structural issues that people that people face. >> There will be days. I think this is a tokenistic appointment. What are your thoughts on this? >> The board of electors on your um interview day were absolutely unanimous. We are so lucky to have you. Uh you are the best in the world in terms of the research that you do. Now I mean beyond the plagiarism allegations the sort of was there um I suppose academic fraud in terms of sort of some of the interviewees in the you know his his is qualitative research so your interviewees are actually sort of the key data point you're using and and some of them are inconsistent. Um so sort of the same quote being used by people with different characteristics and it just it doesn't doesn't add up and then you've got the fantastical background. So, you know, Cambridge could plausibly claim that this this was all information which arose later on. I mean, they did actually also shut down anyone asking any questions. Carter Ruck, who are a very sort of powerful law firm, were hired. I don't know if that was by him or the university or someone else, but that sort of shut down one bit of reporting. Obviously, the police were called on one other journalist and they investigated him for a little while, which was ridiculous. So there were a lot of opportunities for I mean what looks like the truth to come out. But putting all of that aside, >> I know you were saying you were listening to a sort of podcast with this guy earlier. I was watching a lecture with this guy earlier. >> If he is if he was ever considered the best in the world in this discipline, the discipline has a problem. >> Yeah. >> Because I I watched, you know, half of a 40-minute lecture and it was just word salad and nothing was said. It felt like I was in a kind of HR talk where someone was just phoning it in. >> Yeah. Buzzworthy almost. >> Buzzwordy. And so and and also I think that lady, she's the head of faculty. She is sort of another professor of education. and she sort of does I think kind of like peace and conflict in educ something that sounds very wishy-washy like she I think she seems like a nice lady and she was doing her best >> so as and she felt like she was she was very clear that we've listened to our black students we've listened to our black scholars and and actually to be fair to them Oxford and Cambridge have done a lot on access like their student body is much more diverse than it used to be because they've been trying quite hard um but she thought we also need some inspirational people in high places and then they convinced themselves that this guy was a genius. I don't know. I suppose what how do you what do you respond in that video? What do you see going wrong? >> It's difficult to say, isn't it? Because of course on an individual basis have no idea what's going on in, you know, in in in that woman's mind. You know, let's believe the best in her. There is sometimes this thing where I think like black and brown people get hired to like more senior positions on the basis that they will be they will play ball like they will be kind of non-threatening or they won't appear to rock the boat too much as well. Do you know what I mean? And I think that happens with with lots of different demographics potentially, you know, where we can kind they kind of I don't know if it's like this fouian impact almost of like I will agree to be your kind of shiny representative and in return I won't rock the boat too much, you know, I'll play ball. I'll, you know, and then there'll be a kind of mutual transactional agreement. [snorts] And maybe it's never like verbalized, but it's it's just kind of something that's there. So I don't know if that's also kind of part of it. is like, well, we're not going to get someone who's really smart and who could seriously rock the boat on sociology, you know, and then ask some quite difficult questions actually of of our department more broadly. We're going to get someone who would just kind of has a great story. It would be great in the media. They'll play ball. They'll play the role and and maybe it was it wasn't there wasn't any more questioning or curiosity there. That's the key thing maybe, isn't it? A lack of curiosity there. So you're thinking in the interview in the interview process what was going through their heads wasn't is this guy talented but is this guy threatening to us and if he's not threatening to us then we want this famous black guy. >> Yeah. Maybe not as crudely as that but >> well they wouldn't [laughter] have said it. These are these are nice lovely people. >> Yeah. And I wouldn't have said like they would have literally thought that in their head necessarily but I I think there perhaps might be an element of that. It's very difficult to know and I think uh the letter did raise the idea of an investigation right which I think must happen. They are going to have one. >> You know ultimately there's still lots of stuff we just really don't know. Um, so there should be an investigation further further into this. Um, but yeah, I mean, one of the things that was raised in that Guardian oped that I mentioned earlier by Jason was that he said there was a kind of institutional problem of a lack of curiosity, a lack of thought, and a lack of debate actually about what the hell these DEI initiatives are actually for, what's the purpose? What's the end goal? And I think that that debate internally within academia and lots of other places as well should be reignited. We should not be afraid of having that conversation. I think there's a fear about we're going to be giving meat to the right. We're going to be giving meat to these crazy ethnationalists, these so-called race realists or whatever who are obsessed with this story for all the wrong reasons. But if we don't do that, we we risk something much worse, I think, happening than where we are at the moment even. >> Uh yeah, quite um this is a bit like that first story, you know, on the first race. I'm sure we'll be coming back to this and actually I hope we won't because that would mean there were more race. I kind of hope we won't be coming back to this [laughter] story. maybe when the investigation is out. But this is already I feel one thing I feel bad for the guy. I mean I feel bad for the guy a number of things. I'm not sure he's you know he doesn't >> strikes me as vulnerable. >> He strikes me as vulnerable. Yeah. Which isn't a good reason that he should keep his job as a prestigious professor but also why I think one can feel empathy for him in this position. But that on on the most sort of basic level the thing I really feel sorry for him about is that this story happened in August. Because if this was in like May >> and there was like loads of politics going on. Andy Burnham's just become prime minister. This would not be front page of the newspaper for a whole week. But it's because there's literally like not that much else for political journalists to talk about. This is just filling up so much space. Um on that note, let's go on to a a more significant story. >> [snorts]