Cambridge’s chancellor has condemned what she called a racist feeding frenzy after Jason Arday was found dead on Friday, days after he resigned amid plagiarism accusations over parts of his doctoral thesis. The public response has now turned from the allegations themselves to the way they were handled, and to the pressure that surrounded the 41-year-old before his death.
Arday resigned on August 5 after the claims were widely covered in the media, and he said he had reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure. His death has made the question of Jason Arday cause of death unavoidable, but no explanation has been given for how he died, and that silence has sharpened the focus on the events that led up to Friday.
The scale of the response shows how quickly the story has moved beyond a university discipline issue. By Monday morning, an online fundraising page for Arday’s family had raised over £146,000, while a petition calling for a public inquiry into the media coverage had gathered almost 32,400 signatures. Stand Up To Racism was also set to hold a vigil in Trafalgar Square on Monday evening, with another planned in Cambridge.
The pressure on Cambridge is coming from more than one direction. Deborah Prentice had already announced an investigation into the circumstances of Arday’s appointment and his time working at Cambridge before his death was announced, and the university now faces questions not only about the plagiarism claims but about how it treated him while the row escalated. Arday had been Cambridge’s youngest ever black professor, which has made the criticism over the response land harder.
That wider anger has not erased the original allegations. Chris Smith told the on Monday that the plagiarism claims should be rigorously investigated, but said it was right to refuse to join in a racist feeding frenzy over a particular academic. James Cleverly also told the that quite possibly some of the scrutiny was motivated by racism. Arday’s family, meanwhile, has blamed a misinformation campaign, leaving the case suspended between calls for scrutiny and accusations that the scrutiny itself became part of the damage.
What happens next is now clearer than how Arday died: Cambridge’s investigation is under way, the public response is still growing, and the university will have to answer not just for the allegations, but for the culture around them.
