It takes a village to raise a child – a proverb attributed to some African cultures – inspires people who believe in communal responsibility in local and national spheres.
Yet, the most nurturing societies can get swept into a moral panic and brutishly bring down anyone they suspect of wrongdoing. In Uganda, my old homeland, a thief would be chased by a mob, caught, beaten, sometimes to death. It was a human sacrifice, atonement for the sins of the wider community. No one felt guilty. Or sorry. I see similarities between that moralistic mob and what Jason Arday endured week after week and day after day before his death.
The media, academia, social media users and Britons who believe fairness is a defining British value, need to do some honest soul searching.
The Chancellor of Cambridge, Lord Smith voiced his concerns on Monday about the “racist feeding frenzy”. Smith also affirmed his commitment to scholastic integrity, given the plagiarism accusations against Arday. Plagiarism allegations about any academic, “whoever they are”, he said, must be rigorously investigated. All well and good.
But we also need more robust repudiations of those people who are determinedly obstructing equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) in higher education. That no doubt began when the first people of colour were admitted into top ranking universities, and it has continued since.
In 1987, Trinity College Cambridge considered offering a prestigious fellowship to the late Benjamin Zephaniah, a radical, self- taught, wonderful, prize-winning wordsmith. Tabloids went crazy. The fellowship never materialized.
Before Arday died, Afua Hirsch, writer and public intellectual, wrote this in The Guardian: “…Arday doesn’t need to be a fantasist to be the kind of man commentators would rather not see at a university like Cambridge – being Black is enough. For them, the fact that he made stuff up is simply a massive bonus.”
Lest we forget, this was a case of alleged academic plagiarism. Other academic plagiarists were not treated like Arday. Three years ago, Dr William O’Reilly, also at Cambridge, was found to have plagiarised his student’s work, though a university tribunal ruled that this was “negligent” but “not deliberate”. He remains in his job. And this sorry saga was triggered by Nathan Cofnas, an academic and self-described “race realist” who believes in racial differences in IQ and argues that under a true meritocracy, Black people would almost “disappear” from elite academic positions. It remained, at its core, a story about one person in a particular part of a particular university in Britain. While some of the reporting on Arday was fair, part of the reason this story got out of control is related to Arday’s race.
Barely one percent of professors at British unis are Black. Arday’s death is deeply consequential. The sorrow and rage of those who loved him will never subside. And the academic world will have to examine its culture and record. Several Black academics in prestigious universities have told me their confidence in themselves and their institutions has been shaken. One of them said: “Jason was wrong to invent stuff. But most of his students related to his easy manner, the absence of professorial arrogance. We, who are admitted into the club are made to feel it’s a big favour. White plagiarists are forgiven. We cross into their world, but are not trusted, not embraced. And when one of us falls from grace, we all become the fallen. The City is more of a real meritocracy than academia will ever be.”
Cambridge Professor Simon Baron-Cohen, an expert on autism, told the Today programme, Arday, a vulnerable person with disabilities, was used as a “lightning rod for a culture war on diversity, equity and inclusion”.
Right wing media outlets and think-tanks are intensifying these assaults. Academics and journalists committed to diversity, equality and inclusion, need to step up.
The media pursuit of Arday was disproportionate. Has the British media ever been this obsessed by the alleged academic misconduct of a single other professor?
Some hacks and commentators won’t leave him in peace. They are still feeding on a dead man who was a father, son, partner, brother – and mentor of many.
Many people don’t trust my industry. The coverage of Professor Jason Arday’s life and death will cause many more to lose faith. Survival, if nothing else, should prompt some self examination. We cannot demand accountability from politicians, professionals and ordinary citizens and exempt ourselves. More than 90,000 people, including Labour MP Clive Lewis and broadcaster Carol Vorderman are calling for a public inquiry into the way the academic was pursued.
It’s not just the media that has to face some difficult questions. Academia must too. A number of universities, not just Cambridge, come out of this torrid affair looking very bad. Jason Arday ended up in a prominent public position that was unsustainable – and collectively they put him there. What reflections are they undertaking? They should have the decency to tell us.
The publishing industry also looks cowardly. After The Salt Path scandal you think they might learn. But they have apparently learnt nothing. Simon & Schuster continued to press ahead with Arday’s autobiography, even after he had resigned his professorship. After his death, they said they were “deeply saddened” and extended condolences to Arday’s family. The autobiography kept him in the public eye. And we know that while he was in the public eye, nothing kept the wolves from Arday. Publishers cannot go on like this leaving their authors out on a limb.
Social media was – and is – a cesspit of hate during this whole saga. Elon Musk has enabled disgraceful behaviour on X and it is not much better on Facebook. While much of the focus is on the big, familiar institutions of the traditional media and academia, few are talking about where the volume of the hate was truly amplified. The way we use social media has to change.
Lord Woolley, a lifelong Black activist and principal of Homerton College, Cambridge, told me he, Diane Abbott and a few close friends had been to see Arday: “He had lost weight and was utterly desperate. He was on the edge of a cliff surrounded by salivating hounds he could not escape”.
Arday, flawed and sometimes unreliable, was also smart and kind. Tens of thousands of people of all races gathered in central London on Monday to mourn him. It is up to us progressives to ensure his death was not in vain.
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