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Where did I put my shocked face?

When identity politics takes precedence over academic standards, universities cease to fulfil their purpose.

By: Andrew Doyle

Published: Aug 3, 2026

Jason Arday’s improbable claims have turned him into a Walter Mitty for our times. As the youngest black person ever to be appointed a professor at the University of Cambridge, there are good reasons why those who have championed him are rushing to his defence. But with each passing day, new revelations of his slippery relationship with reality seem to be emerging.

As with many fabulists, it is difficult to know where the truth ends and the fiction begins. Some of Arday’s boasts are quite obviously false. For instance, nobody believes that he completed the last nine of thirty consecutive marathons with a fractured leg that had swollen ‘to twice its normal size’. Or that he appeared in the television series Seven Up! as a child, even though its participants were selected in 1963 and Arday was born two decades later.

Other claims might well be embellishments on kernels of reality. No doubt he has raised money for charity, but it seems highly unlikely that his vaunted sum of £5.5 million is accurate. We know that he played snooker, but his assertion that he did so professionally would carry more weight if someone on the circuit had heard of him. Few would dispute that Arday is a keen amateur athlete. But if his claim to have run six hundred miles in six days were true, that would place him among the world’s elite sportsmen.

Perhaps most serious of all are the accusations of plagiarism. Cambridge has been quick to dismiss the matter, stating that an investigation has already been conducted by Liverpool John Moores University, where Arday completed his PhD thesis, and no evidence of plagiarism was found. Many readers who have compared the relevant passages side by side have reached a different conclusion. Numerous examples have been collated by Nathan Cofnas and can be seen here.

The refusal of the authorities at Cambridge to investigate the allegations properly has naturally raised suspicions that Arday is being protected because he is the poster boy for DEI. If it is true that he was raised on a council estate, diagnosed with autism at the age of three, first spoke at the age of eleven, and learned to read and write at eighteen, then his success story is unparalleled. Yet plagiarism is an extremely grave matter for an academic, and the evidence is difficult to dismiss.

The failure to hold Arday to the same standards as anyone else is, of course, a soft form of racism.

Those who have been wildly accusing his critics of racial prejudice might want to take a moment to consider whether they are engaged in a form of projection. Simon Baron-Cohen, Professor of Developmental Psychopathology at Cambridge, had circulated a letter to fellow academics urging them to sign in the name of ‘anti-racism’. It might well be that some of Arday’s critics are gleefully leaping on the controversy to discredit a prominent black man, but these are unpleasant outliers. Most people are simply concerned that academic standards are being degraded out of a misguided fealty to the creed of identity politics.

Baron-Cohen’s most shameful ploy has been to cite statistics regarding suicidality in autism and then raise concerns about the ‘impact of the media coverage on Professor Jason Arday who is autistic’. This kind of emotional blackmail ought to be beneath him. While it is natural to feel sympathy for anyone who is caught in a media storm, we cannot get around the fact that Arday is a high-profile academic at a top university. The reporters who have covered this controversy are not ‘bullying a vulnerable autistic man’; they are simply doing their job.

The notion that minorities ought to be judged by lower standards is undeniably racist, and yet this is precisely the stance taken by Arday’s cheerleaders. It is possible to investigate and report on this story without veering into cruelty, and virtually all reporters have acquitted themselves admirably in this regard. But it is no small matter that Arday’s promotion prevented other people – possibly also from minority groups – from securing a role for which they may have been better qualified. Arday is not the victim here.

At present, we have no idea why Arday lifted whole passages from another academic’s work for his thesis. According to the BBC, Arday has insisted that his autism meant that in his early academic work he would rely ‘on using mimicry to make sense of information, and that similar scrutiny would find similar errors in work by other academics’. But it is simply not the case that plagiarism on this scale is commonplace. Mistakes, of course, can be made. One might, for instance, jot down a quotation in note form without an attribution and then later take it to be one’s own writing. But look again at the sheer volume of identical passages; plagiarism does appear to be the most plausible explanation.

Hard as it is to believe, this may not even be a straightforward case of fraudulence. There are those for whom lying comes completely naturally, so much so that it is often their first instinct. The novelist Compton Mackenzie called such people the improvisatori, and famous examples he knew personally included Dr Axel Munthe, Ford Madox Ford, Lawrence of Arabia and the artist Dion Clayton Calthrop.

In the third volume of his autobiography, Mackenzie gives an example of one of these improvisatori, a military man who he refers to only as ‘T—’.

‘On one occasion cannibalism was a topic in the billiards-room. “I expect I’m the only one here who knows what human flesh tastes like,” said T—. We exclaimed in astonishment. “Yes, when I was on safari in Matabeleland soon after the war we had an unusually good soup one night. When I told my cook-boy how good it was he beamed and said it was because he had put in it a dead baby he had bought from its mother. Of course, I gave him a flogging and forbade him ever to do such a thing again.” “But didn’t you feel horribly sick when you heard what your cook-boy had done?” we asked. “Yes, I suppose I felt a bit squeamish but I have to admit that it was a really excellent soup.”’

It is a perfect example of the genre: an anecdote rich in detail and told with conviction, but utterly false. In such cases, it is not that the lie serves a purpose, but that it reveals a curious tendency in the man whose first instinct is to dwell in fantasy.

Some liars believe their own lies. Some simply relish the attention or the sense of power that often accompanies a successful deception. It is useless at this point to speculate on Arday’s motives, or even if he is aware that he has done anything wrong. Yet as a high-profile figure at a top university, any evidence of professional misconduct must be investigated. The issue is not race but standards, and a university that cannot distinguish between the two has lost sight of its purpose.

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University refuses to investigate DEI star’s plagiarism

The inevitable result of DEI, affirmative action and identity politics.

Calling people "racists" for the crime of noticing things doesn't work anymore.

#Andrew Doyle #Jason Arday #fantacism #fantacists #plagiarism #fabulists #academic standards #higher education #diversity hire #DEI hire #affirmative action #diversity equity and inclusion #diversity #equity #inclusion #academic corruption #academic fraud #identity politics #religion is a mental illness

#DEI #DEI hire #POC

#dei hire #obama #barack obama #Obama is an enemy combatant #hillary clinton #the Clintons are traitors #the Obamas are traitors

I've been holding back on sharing Erika's "club america" high school visits. First in Illinois with the Secretary of Education, Linda Macmahon, where kids were tricked into waiting for pickup in the school auditorium. Last week in Texas with high school graduates enrolled in a tpusa prep gap year program. She flew private to Texas to stage a photo op to address the backlash over her ceo role when her husband was publicly adamant about erika devoting her undivided attention to his children. Now this Arkansas trainwreck where Mike Huckabee's daughter, Sarah, created a media production to encourage more governors to mandate tpusa in every state funded high school, college/university. Erika Kirk is officially working with the Trump Administration's Department of Education & with the Defense Department. Now that her Club America roll out is mainstream, I feel good about dusting off my drafts. -GG

Shout out to all the young white mailmen!!! Accepting bets on how far back Erika Kirk will single handedly set race relations.

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Everyone is confused. (Commentary)

"...to have a club america on every high school chapter around the country. God bless you."

Is it any wonder why this woman will fit right in at the Airforce Academy alongside Markwayne Mullen. 😬🤦‍♀️

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Last flight we had a girl pilot and it was good. We have a guy one this time and its bumpy

#dei hire #mavis mentions

If anyone is able, please help a queer, disabled household pay our bills? (Ko-fi link)

The world is very hard for us while two out of the three of us are waiting for disability and any help would be appreciated. (It also turns out, I'm a DEI hire, so there's that)

I have been planning on streaming video games on twitch on Saturday nights at 7pm EST. We will be starting on February 1st and a poll has decided that we will start with Persona 5 Royal.

I am also working on recording myself reading banned books, so if you're interested in that, let me know! I also write fanfiction and am willing to write for prompts!

I'm hoping building community will help makes things easier in the next four years, so here's a start.

Edit (April 29, 2025)

My bosses have only been giving me one day a week so I am bringing home less than half of my rent, (my portion is $400/month) which obviously isn't enough for rent or anything else I need.

My sisters and I are fighting tooth and nail to stay afloat, but at this point we can't.

My disabilities are also getting worse every day and I'm to the point where I can't hardly get out of bed most days. I did have a phone call with the disability office again, but I probably won't hear back for another six months at least and even then I may not be approved.

If there is any way you can, any help is appreciated. Even just sharing this post is helpful. We're desperately trying to make it until I can get disability.

I have a caseworker now who is helping us get food stamps and trying to find us a place to stay just so we can get out of this rat trap, but we still need help.

EDITED ADDITION

So, it looks like my ESA has some health issues that will take constant care to address and money will be even tighter.

Her previous owners apparently fed her things that were very bad for her and ruined her stomach, so now she needs special food. (She's just like me!) We are also pretty sure she has asthma so we will have to get her medicine to help her breathe.

We know exactly what she needs and are working to get it as soon as possible, but we will have to continuously keep up on those medications and food.

Her name is Holly and she would deeply appreciate any love and support you could send our way.