The news about a journalist being sent a letter by a law firm basically telling him to leave Arday alone also made this a “juicy” tale and propelled it further.
An excellent and well-balanced piece, unlike many published both before and after Arday's tragic death, though the Guardian has also been excellent, pointing out the excesses of some on the right while robustly defending its decision to investigate Arday. It clearly felt it had to do that since those now strongly pushing a narrative that Arday was killed by the racist right wing press have had to confront the inconvenient fact that the Guardian's own investigation was pivotal, largely because it did not fit that narrative.
In this context it is interesting and somewhat alarming to see how the discourse around Arday has changed since his death. At exactly the point when many - from the PM downwards - have suggested that we pause and reflect, commentators have doubled down and retreated into typically tribalist positions. In particular, some on the left now appear to be arguing not only that Arday received more scrutiny than white equivalents (arguably true) but that all scrutiny of him was unjust and racist, that he has been "lynched" by the press, and that Katharine Viner is as culpable as e.g. Camilla Long. This is not only a preposterous position to adopt (and one which is arguably itself racist, since it denies Arday all agency) but it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect to what is intended, and enable racist commentators to claim that they were right all along about academics of colour being held to different standards
I think the cover up, including the UK police once again swooping in to suppress the freedom of speech and the press, also lent the story greater salience.
The Good Law Project demanding a public inquiry is typically bonkers of them. Surely an inquiry into whether the coverage was fair or proportionate would have to consider whether the claims about Arday were true or not - that seems to me like the one thing he would not have wanted.
James, this is a balanced piece overall but your section on the ‘DEI’ angle leans heavily on speculation and ventures a perspective that is not supported by very few actual facts available about Jason Arday’s hiring.
You also seem to misunderstand the provisions of the Equality Act (2010) which, in my experience, universities take very seriously. You write that “there is still a balance to be struck between someone’s personal characteristics and their actual ability to do their job”. Actually, no. UK law does not permit positive discrimination in hiring (in contrast to, until recently, the situation in the USA), even if that would provide an opportunity for someone less qualified from an under-represented group. If two candidates are judged equally capable, you are permitted to take positive action to choose the candidate from the under-represented group as a proportionate means to addressing a severe lack of diversity.
Cambridge, like most research-intensive universities, is trying to do a better job of not discriminating on the basis of sex/gender, ethnicity, disability and other protected characteristics. One of the recently developed instruments for doing this is the Race Equality Charter, which requires universities to look hard at their staff and student demographic data, report on it (Cambridge’s is here: https://www.race-equality.admin.cam.ac.uk/race-equality-charter) and formulate an action plan for tackling extant race inequality. The primary motivation for doing so in my view is to stop turning talent away because it doesn’t look like our stereotypical idea of a university professor (mostly white and male – nationwide we’re still at only around 25% female professors). At the same time, my own experience of leading on EDI policies at another research intensive (Imperial) – and from talking to my opposite numbers at other UK institutions – showed me that the demand to maintain standards is ever-present. Progress is slow for a great many complex and interacting reasons. Mistakes are undoubtedly being made along the way – at the system and individual level. If you’ve ever been involved in recruitment, you’ll know what a difficult task it can be. But it doesn’t help to speculate on what may or may not have been on the minds of the hiring committee. How about we wait for the investigation to complete its work and learn the lessons then?
I think that's right. At the end of the day a small number of people made the decision to publish between them hundreds of articles on Arday, for reasons that seem as, James outlines, partly racist- adjacent. The just solution wouldseem to be for their names to be made well known, and for them to be subject to the same shaming as they attempted to hand out to someone else. Maybe next time , they would then reflect on whether they would again choose to feed the public's unhealthy appetites.
On his appointment to Cambridge the publicity carried the tale of non-verbal until 11 and illiterate until 18 and I thought that's preposterous and wouldn't end well.
For him to actually be in Education research and no one around to be curious about this is at least notable.
In a sociology PhD, research usually starts with finding a sharp question about how society works—things like inequality, culture, institutions, or social change.
You dig deep into the existing literature, then design a study using methods like interviews, surveys, ethnography, or statistical analysis of large datasets. After that comes collecting and analysing the data, and writing it all up as a dissertation under your supervisor’s guidance.
Most of the real work happens in those middle years once the topic is locked in.
Did Jason Arday do all of this?
Yes. Jason Arday completed a PhD in education in 2015. His thesis looked at peer-mentoring among student teachers and how it supports reflective practice, using action research methods.
He ran a small qualitative study with interviews, workshops, reflective exercises and questionnaires, analysed the data, and wrote it all up as a dissertation—the standard research steps.
How small?
Just four student teachers in the main peer-mentoring part of the study.
There was some wider early data—questionnaires from about two dozen people and a couple of interviews with teacher educators—but the core intervention and findings rested on those four participants.
Isn’t this a poor standard even for sociology?
Small samples are normal in qualitative work, especially action research or in-depth studies of a specific process. The goal is depth, not statistical generalisation, so four people can be acceptable if the analysis is rigorous and the insights are strong.
That said, four is on the very low end even for that approach. Critics have argued the study’s design, limited scope, and the way findings were presented made the overall contribution thin for a doctoral thesis. The later plagiarism allegations only strengthened the view that the standard was poor.
A really well thought through summary of a story where the bottom line is "everything stinks here".
I think there's another angle. I saw Sonia Sodha and Kwasi Kwarteng on GMB bringing out the hoary old trope of "we can't limit the freedom of the press". But no-one challenges this: we have a press that is cowed and limited.
Take the Royals - plenty of stories hover in the ether, but let's think about some of the stories about ex-Prince Andrew from Andrew Lownie's excellent book Entitled - all well stood up, and presumably well known to journalists, but no one would publish because the royals would cut off access.
Equally, I can't imagine a newspaper ever writing a negative story about any high profile gender critical activist as they'd be scared off by legal threats financed by JK Rowling.
What use is a free press if some - the powerful, the wealthy and their friends - get a free pass?
The Good Law Project employs a specialist defamation solicitor, who assists individuals and organisations facing SLAPP threats. Yet in this case they appear to simply ignore or hand wave away the deployment of such a threat by or on behalf of Arday in order to stifle the investigative journalism of the sector specific publication Times Higher Education.
I agree with a fair bit of this. Is there any evidence outside the fevered minds of a certain group that people are endangered as you imply because people are being hired not able to do the job for DEI reasons? (Never worked anywhere that said DEI by the way.) On the contrary lots of evidence of ethnic minorities being promoted more slowly and treated more formally and harshly, eg in NHS.
It is wort noting that almost everyone in academia and media was actively covering this up and supporting lies not just being bamboozled. They spoke to him, they knew what he was saying wasn't real, it wasn't a convincing con. Testing for plagiarism is the norm, they must have made a deliberate decision to turn off their plagiarism checkers when he submitted documents.
The committee that cleared his PhD would have known that the interviews he claimed to carry out were fabrications, they decided despite that and in full knowledge that it was fake data to pass it.
The news about a journalist being sent a letter by a law firm basically telling him to leave Arday alone also made this a “juicy” tale and propelled it further.
An excellent and well-balanced piece, unlike many published both before and after Arday's tragic death, though the Guardian has also been excellent, pointing out the excesses of some on the right while robustly defending its decision to investigate Arday. It clearly felt it had to do that since those now strongly pushing a narrative that Arday was killed by the racist right wing press have had to confront the inconvenient fact that the Guardian's own investigation was pivotal, largely because it did not fit that narrative.
In this context it is interesting and somewhat alarming to see how the discourse around Arday has changed since his death. At exactly the point when many - from the PM downwards - have suggested that we pause and reflect, commentators have doubled down and retreated into typically tribalist positions. In particular, some on the left now appear to be arguing not only that Arday received more scrutiny than white equivalents (arguably true) but that all scrutiny of him was unjust and racist, that he has been "lynched" by the press, and that Katharine Viner is as culpable as e.g. Camilla Long. This is not only a preposterous position to adopt (and one which is arguably itself racist, since it denies Arday all agency) but it is likely to have exactly the opposite effect to what is intended, and enable racist commentators to claim that they were right all along about academics of colour being held to different standards
I think the cover up, including the UK police once again swooping in to suppress the freedom of speech and the press, also lent the story greater salience.
Absolutely bang on.
The Good Law Project demanding a public inquiry is typically bonkers of them. Surely an inquiry into whether the coverage was fair or proportionate would have to consider whether the claims about Arday were true or not - that seems to me like the one thing he would not have wanted.
James, this is a balanced piece overall but your section on the ‘DEI’ angle leans heavily on speculation and ventures a perspective that is not supported by very few actual facts available about Jason Arday’s hiring.
You also seem to misunderstand the provisions of the Equality Act (2010) which, in my experience, universities take very seriously. You write that “there is still a balance to be struck between someone’s personal characteristics and their actual ability to do their job”. Actually, no. UK law does not permit positive discrimination in hiring (in contrast to, until recently, the situation in the USA), even if that would provide an opportunity for someone less qualified from an under-represented group. If two candidates are judged equally capable, you are permitted to take positive action to choose the candidate from the under-represented group as a proportionate means to addressing a severe lack of diversity.
Cambridge, like most research-intensive universities, is trying to do a better job of not discriminating on the basis of sex/gender, ethnicity, disability and other protected characteristics. One of the recently developed instruments for doing this is the Race Equality Charter, which requires universities to look hard at their staff and student demographic data, report on it (Cambridge’s is here: https://www.race-equality.admin.cam.ac.uk/race-equality-charter) and formulate an action plan for tackling extant race inequality. The primary motivation for doing so in my view is to stop turning talent away because it doesn’t look like our stereotypical idea of a university professor (mostly white and male – nationwide we’re still at only around 25% female professors). At the same time, my own experience of leading on EDI policies at another research intensive (Imperial) – and from talking to my opposite numbers at other UK institutions – showed me that the demand to maintain standards is ever-present. Progress is slow for a great many complex and interacting reasons. Mistakes are undoubtedly being made along the way – at the system and individual level. If you’ve ever been involved in recruitment, you’ll know what a difficult task it can be. But it doesn’t help to speculate on what may or may not have been on the minds of the hiring committee. How about we wait for the investigation to complete its work and learn the lessons then?
came here to say this.
With respect to subscript 2, rather unfortunately people do this all of the bloody time.
Certain sectors have really pushed the "personal accountability is a fad pushed by billionaires to escape scrutiny" line.
I think that's right. At the end of the day a small number of people made the decision to publish between them hundreds of articles on Arday, for reasons that seem as, James outlines, partly racist- adjacent. The just solution wouldseem to be for their names to be made well known, and for them to be subject to the same shaming as they attempted to hand out to someone else. Maybe next time , they would then reflect on whether they would again choose to feed the public's unhealthy appetites.
On his appointment to Cambridge the publicity carried the tale of non-verbal until 11 and illiterate until 18 and I thought that's preposterous and wouldn't end well.
For him to actually be in Education research and no one around to be curious about this is at least notable.
Remember when the Good Law Project was about stopping the illegal prorogation of parliament after Brexit? Those were the days.
How do you research a sociology phd?
In a sociology PhD, research usually starts with finding a sharp question about how society works—things like inequality, culture, institutions, or social change.
You dig deep into the existing literature, then design a study using methods like interviews, surveys, ethnography, or statistical analysis of large datasets. After that comes collecting and analysing the data, and writing it all up as a dissertation under your supervisor’s guidance.
Most of the real work happens in those middle years once the topic is locked in.
Did Jason Arday do all of this?
Yes. Jason Arday completed a PhD in education in 2015. His thesis looked at peer-mentoring among student teachers and how it supports reflective practice, using action research methods.
He ran a small qualitative study with interviews, workshops, reflective exercises and questionnaires, analysed the data, and wrote it all up as a dissertation—the standard research steps.
How small?
Just four student teachers in the main peer-mentoring part of the study.
There was some wider early data—questionnaires from about two dozen people and a couple of interviews with teacher educators—but the core intervention and findings rested on those four participants.
Isn’t this a poor standard even for sociology?
Small samples are normal in qualitative work, especially action research or in-depth studies of a specific process. The goal is depth, not statistical generalisation, so four people can be acceptable if the analysis is rigorous and the insights are strong.
That said, four is on the very low end even for that approach. Critics have argued the study’s design, limited scope, and the way findings were presented made the overall contribution thin for a doctoral thesis. The later plagiarism allegations only strengthened the view that the standard was poor.
A really well thought through summary of a story where the bottom line is "everything stinks here".
I think there's another angle. I saw Sonia Sodha and Kwasi Kwarteng on GMB bringing out the hoary old trope of "we can't limit the freedom of the press". But no-one challenges this: we have a press that is cowed and limited.
Take the Royals - plenty of stories hover in the ether, but let's think about some of the stories about ex-Prince Andrew from Andrew Lownie's excellent book Entitled - all well stood up, and presumably well known to journalists, but no one would publish because the royals would cut off access.
Equally, I can't imagine a newspaper ever writing a negative story about any high profile gender critical activist as they'd be scared off by legal threats financed by JK Rowling.
What use is a free press if some - the powerful, the wealthy and their friends - get a free pass?
Do you think the British press is too scared to criticise supporters of J K Rowling?
High profile gender critical activist? Such as?
The Good Law Project employs a specialist defamation solicitor, who assists individuals and organisations facing SLAPP threats. Yet in this case they appear to simply ignore or hand wave away the deployment of such a threat by or on behalf of Arday in order to stifle the investigative journalism of the sector specific publication Times Higher Education.
I agree with a fair bit of this. Is there any evidence outside the fevered minds of a certain group that people are endangered as you imply because people are being hired not able to do the job for DEI reasons? (Never worked anywhere that said DEI by the way.) On the contrary lots of evidence of ethnic minorities being promoted more slowly and treated more formally and harshly, eg in NHS.
I think artists should make films with whatever "colour" actors they want. But publicly funded institutions should reflect the population.
Otherwise.. I agree.. Mr Arday was promoted beyond his abilities and it destroyed him. The racism and culture war were there anyway.
It is wort noting that almost everyone in academia and media was actively covering this up and supporting lies not just being bamboozled. They spoke to him, they knew what he was saying wasn't real, it wasn't a convincing con. Testing for plagiarism is the norm, they must have made a deliberate decision to turn off their plagiarism checkers when he submitted documents.
The committee that cleared his PhD would have known that the interviews he claimed to carry out were fabrications, they decided despite that and in full knowledge that it was fake data to pass it.
A hack is criminal, a blog by an academic with very unpopular opinions isn't. It doesn't seem a good comparison.