The polarized fronts in the Jason Arday case and the British Prime Minister agree on one thing: that the rise and fall of the educational sociologist, who was found dead on Friday after weeks of accusations of plagiarism and the falsification of his biography, is a “tragedy on many levels”. But then perceptions diverge. According to the well-established thought patterns of the culture war, progressives and conservatives argue about the question of who killed Jason Arday.
Defenders of the exposed academic, whose career collapsed like a house of cards, claim that he was driven to his death by a racially motivated media hunt. In the left-wing Observer, British-Nigerian author Seun Matiluko denounces the reporting on Arday as an expression of “a politics of white resentment” that is automatically suspicious of black success “because it somehow comes at the expense of white people.” On the other side are the critics who see Jason Arday as a “sacrificial lamb of the diversity crusade,” as Brendan O’Neill from the libertarian internet magazine “Spiked” writes in the conservative “Spectator.”
The desire to create a savior
On paper, the child of Ghanaian immigrants who grew up in a south London council estate and who claims to have overcome unheard of hurdles to be appointed as the youngest black professor in the history of the University of Cambridge also fulfilled all the criteria of identity politics. O’Neill criticizes Cambridge for promoting him “as a black prodigy” in the hope that his mere presence in an elite place like this could help erase the sins of whiteness. It was precisely this “dizzying, narcissistic desire to create some kind of black savior” that led Cambridge to ignore the questionable elements in Arday's CV. O'Neill accuses the university, which praised Arday's appointment as professor of educational sociology three years ago as the "world's best" in his field, of sacrificing its duty of care to the "god of decolonization." The “toxic pact of identity politics” creates shaky pedestals for thinkers from ethnic minorities, often making the fall twice as deadly.
Nigel Biggar, the Oxford professor emeritus of moral theology, a persistent critic of identity politics, is among those who are now accused of feeling vindicated by the Arday case in their crusade against the destruction of universities by wokeness. However, several days before the dramatic change, he made it known that he feared for Arday's life. Although the academic was “serially dishonest,” he appears to have actually believed his own lies. There is something tragic about his situation. Because when reality finally penetrates, the Nemesis will also appear and a terrible reckoning will destroy the self-image constructed by Arday. Biggar was more interested in the question of how Cambridge came to appoint the sociologist as a professor and what this said about the state of higher education.
The rubble of the old world
The respected political scientist David Runciman, who was a professor at Cambridge until two years ago, argues in the New Statesman that the case would never have made such waves if it had not happened in Cambridge. The contrast between the high reputation of the institution and “the highly contemporary dynamics” of the Arday scandal gives the story its explosiveness. “Race, class, snobbery, wokeness all come into sharper focus as the action takes place in this insular world of old colleges and elite reputations, some of which are now in ruins,” writes Runciman. In fact, the story of a supposed fantasist takes place against the background of the fantasy ideas that Cambridge still awakens, even though that world is gone.
It is significant how the biology ethicist Nathan Cofnas is repeatedly brought into play. Several commentators point to Cofnas, who likes to portray himself as a victim of wokeness because of his infamy for claiming that black academics are unlikely to reach top positions in a systemic meritocracy outside of sports and the entertainment industry. In this context, he took up the Arday case in a blog. However, allegations of alleged plagiarism have been circulating for a long time. A journalist from the Times Higher Education newspaper, who carried out an in-depth investigation last year, was reported to the police and formally told by a leading law firm not to contact Arday again.
This attempt to thwart serious research is also an example of how facts that do not fit into the worldview have been ignored. In this respect, the horrific outcome of this story is a parable of selective perception and conformist thinking.
