This is why it’s not Ardays fault but the people who are responsible for verifying the background of the person they hired, and maintaining academic integrity. He should never have been in that position to begin with if they had even bothered to do their jobs right.
Comment on Racism Pushed Jason Arday to the Top of the News Agenda
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 1 day agoCofnas wasn’t connected to the investigative reporting by Times Higher Education last autumn which found 68 pages of comparison between Arday’s papers and his students’ - with typos intact. It also uncoveed evidence he had falsified a medical study he authored. The piece was spiked following a SLAPP threat from notorious lawfare firm Carter-Ruck, on instructions from Arday.
The first Cambridge investigation made the mistake of discounting the allegations against Arday because the complaint had been brought by another racist. This despite the investigation having found copious corroborative evidence from Arday’s colleagues, who were deeply concerned by his comduct.
iocase@lemmy.zip 20 hours ago
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 8 hours ago
Oh it’s Arday’s fault for ripping off his students and committing academic fraud. Completely on him.
It’s the College’s and University’s fault for Blackwashing and promoting someone to a position they didn’t deserve to get good publicity. Also their fault for offhandedly dismissing complaints about him as racism.
It’s the media’s fault for overexposing the story, though it’s silly season and a perfect silly story.
iocase@lemmy.zip 8 hours ago
I think that’s reasonable but someone like Arady should never ever have been in that position to begin with which is my main point. Is it the village idiot’s fault for being the village idiot? Or is it the university’s fault for making the village idiot the Dean?
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 4 hours ago
And this is the problem with DEI implementation. For everry worthy hire, there is the risk of an institution forcing through an unworthy candidate for PR optics purposes. When people are so convinced of their righteousness it’s tempting to label dissent as racist out of hand. It’s deeply concerning that the rally in Trafalgar Square attracted non-critical support from senior MPs including Zack Polanski and Jeremy Corbyn, without any apparent critical thinking involved.
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 18 hours ago
Agree. People who are essentially racists and hung up on their obsession with so-called DEI appointments are going to continue to focus on Arday’s shortcomings rather than this. But to go back to the original subject of this thread: it is the racist, anti-DEI mob that hounded Arday to his death.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 4 hours ago
Or was it the pro-DEI mob who elevated an academic to a position they didn’t deserve and put them in the firing line, labelling any complaint as racist? Neither scenario is satisfactory.
To be clear, the “shortcoming” here is plagiarism and falsifying evidence, the worst offence in academia. Sure, the racist anti-DEI mob played a part. But is that because they were the only ones prepared to stick their heads above the parapets?
There were many regular academic colleagues of his who expressed concerns when the investigation bothered to ask, but for some reason they were afraid to lodge the initial complaint themselves. This is concerning.
tenebrisnox@feddit.uk 18 hours ago
Can you give me examples of another academic who has suffered similar levels of witch hunt by the British media? Or are there really no other academics who do stuff like this? You know as well as I do why the witch hunt was as relentless as it was.
Even when Arday resigned his post, the witch hunt continued. I’ve heard that there journalists talked about Arday killing himself long before he did. The focus should be on the process of Arday’s appointment. It wasn’t Arday’s alleged plaigarism or alleged fantasisings that caused the media witch hunt: it was because he was lauded for being young, autistic and black. Racists can’t stand stuff like.
ohulancutash@feddit.uk 7 hours ago
Can you give me another academic that’s such a Walter Mitty? His bizarre extreme claimed lifestory played a big part in the media coverage - it is silly season after all - and I can’t think of an academic like that but you may remember the case a few years ago of Nicholas Rossi, the American fugitive rapist found on a Covid ward in Scotland who fought extradition by claiming he was Irishman Arthur Knight, never even visited the US. The outlandish claims and behaviour magnified coverage of that case much as it magnified the Arday affair.
And yeah, race was a factor in the Arday case, the Heil and Telegraph can’t help themselves, but there are more sober issues which should be discussed openly - why were Arday’s colleagues, who had serious concerns - unwilling to come forward with complaints lest they be labelled as racist? Why did it take vile racists to actually get the institution to look into the matter? Isn’t something broken here?