Again: Cambridge "Professor," a "Poster Boy for Diversity," Found To Have Plagiarized His Ph.D. Thesis and Claimed to Have Personally Interviewed Subjects When He Actually Just Lifted the Interviews from Other Sources

More DEI excellence.

And once again, the defense isn't "this isn't plagiarism."

The defense is, as it always is: "You're racist for noticing."

Cambridge's diversity poster boy in plagiarism row

Youngest black professor in university's history is subject of bitter argument between academics

The "argument" is the same one we saw when Claudine Gay, then Harvard President, was found to be a serial plagiarist. The argument is, basically: "Yeah but they're DEI anyway, do we really expect them to abide the same rules that apply to real hires?"

And once again the left gives the game away by arguing, "No, they're not required to abide the same rules that apply to real hires, because they're not real hires and everyone knows it."

When Jason Arday became a Cambridge professor at the age of 37, he was lionised by the academic world and became a poster boy for the university's diversity drive.

He had beaten almost impossible odds to get there. Diagnosed with autism, and non-verbal until the age of 11, he had only learnt to read and write at 18 but obtained a degree and a doctorate before forging a career in teaching.

Now, on the eve of the publication of his autobiography, the University of Cambridge's professor of sociology of education has become the subject of a bitter row over plagiarism that has pitted his peers against each other.

On one side of the argument are professors at other universities who believe Prof Arday's published works, including his PhD thesis, contain passages that are remarkably similar -- and in some cases identical -- to other academic papers, without proper attribution.

There are more than one hundred such plagiarisms.

On the other side of the argument are friends and close colleagues of Prof Arday, the youngest black professor in the university's history, who believe he is the victim of a racist smear campaign and have tried to make it an issue for the Government.

What started as a row between academics is now lapping at the shore of politics.

Both Cambridge and Liverpool John Moores University -- which awarded Prof Arday his PhD -- are on his side, insisting that he has done nothing wrong and the allegations are unfounded smears.

Cambridge said he had been the victim of a "vile campaign to undermine his credibility".

The stakes could hardly be higher, as accusations of plagiarism can be career-ending for academics, and accusations that later prove to be false can be equally damaging to those who make them.

Until now, the row had been happening away from public view -- but the publication of a blog this week, which features a side-by-side comparison of Prof Arday's thesis with that of another student, has brought it out into the open.

An analysis of Prof Arday's PhD thesis for The Telegraph identified more than 100 passages that are identical or nearly identical to a 2009 PhD thesis by Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a Brunel University student.

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Fellow academics began to raise concerns about the legitimacy of his published work when they carried out due diligence before inviting him to contribute to other academic papers.

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One professor of education at a Russell Group university, who has asked to remain anonymous, said they noticed "inconsistencies" in his published research when they carried out checks before asking him to contribute a chapter on a book about decolonisation.

When they looked at his doctoral thesis, they "identified extensive textual overlap with an earlier PhD thesis submitted by another academic at a different university".

Their assessment was that "the similarities were not confined to isolated passages but formed an extensive pattern of close paraphrasing", which would not necessarily be detected by computer programs designed to detect verbatim copying of text.

'Evidence should be rigorously examined'

Robert Dingwall, emeritus professor of social sciences at both the University of Nottingham and Nottingham Trent University and a government adviser during the Covid pandemic, said: "In the current climate, it is difficult to comment on allegations of plagiarism against a prominent minority scholar without seeming to take sides on EDI [equality, diversity and inclusion].

"Plagiarism is, however, rightly treated as a serious academic offence, at any level. We have a collective duty to call it out where there is robust evidence.

"From what I have seen, there certainly appears to be a prima facie case here. It may be difficult to find a suitably impartial adjudicator but, as a matter of fairness to all parties, the evidence should be rigorously examined and the subject invited to provide a detailed response, rather than being the victim of continuing smears and innuendos.

"This is a moment when universities in general, and sociologists in particular, must be willing to show that they are capable of living by their own standards of professional integrity."

'Potential public attack on Jason'

Supporters of Prof Arday became aware last year of questions about his academic legitimacy, and responded with furious accusations of racism.

Of course. That's their whole hustle.

As usual, "journalists" were pressured not to run the story, as it would hurt the leftist cause, and also as usual, "journalists" bowed to the pressure and supported Team Third World Socialism.

In September 2025, Times Higher Education had a bombshell story in the works: A star sociology professor at the University of Cambridge had allegedly plagiarized parts of his Ph.D. thesis and several journal articles. In one of the articles, the borrowed text appeared in quotes from subjects the professor, Jason Arday, claimed to have interviewed himself.

But after Arday enlisted Carter-Ruck, one of the United Kingdom's leading defamation law firms, to send Times Higher Education a letter, the publication spiked the story, according to three sources who spoke to Retraction Watch.

One of the sources was David Sanders, a biochemist at Purdue University in Indiana, and a sleuth who contributes to the Times Higher Education on topics related to academic misconduct. He reviewed a 63-page dossier of text comparisons prepared by the publication last year and came back with his own findings. "There is no question that there is extensive plagiarism," Sanders told us.

The allegations against Arday finally emerged last week following a Substack post from Nathan Cofnas, a philosopher at the University of Ghent in Belgium. Cofnas, who is known for his controversial writings on racial differences, independently identified dozens of passages in Arday's 2015 dissertation that were taken nearly verbatim from the 2009 dissertation of Paula Zwozdiak-Myers, a reader at Brunel University of London. Cofnas says he learned about the unpublished Times Higher Education story only after he began working on his own piece about Arday.

Arday is known for his work on topics related to race, inequality and education. His interest was more than scholarly: From humble beginnings as a nonverbal autistic kid in South London, he became, at age 37, the youngest Black person appointed to a professorship at Cambridge.

That achievement was covered by the BBC, CBS News, and Good Morning America. He is listed as a collaborator on more than $10 million in recent grants from two U.K. funding agencies, U.K. Research and Innovation and the National Institute for Health and Care Research.

Arday's achievements have not been limited to academia. He has said he has raised more than $8 million for charity and performed impressive athletic feats, including running 30 marathons in 35 days. His forthcoming memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, is slated to be published next month by Simon & Schuster.

Oh, he also lies about stupid things, like his record as an ultra-marathoner. He claimed to have run 600 miles in 6 days -- 100 miles a day. Then that claim disappeared from his website and was replaced by the claim he ran 600 miles in 12 days.

He did this with a bunch of claims about his running.

The reality (if we now know the reality, which we might not) about his running is impressive, but still he lies about it to puff himself up.

I mean: His lies are Kim Il Sung-esque.

The Cambridge professor at the centre of a plagiarism row is facing questions over claims he has made about his athletic prowess and charity fundraising. Prof Jason Arday says he once ran 600 miles in six days for charity, 300 miles in three days, and 30 marathons in 35 days, partly with a broken leg.

But experts in ultra-distance running have cast doubt on his claims, expressing surprise that he is not known in the ultra-distance community despite achievements that would put him among the world's top athletes.

Prof Arday also claims to have been a professional footballer and snooker player, and to have raised £5.5m for more than 70 charities.

Some of the country's most respected academics have called for an independent investigation into allegations of plagiarism surrounding Prof Arday after The Telegraph reported last week on striking similarities between his PhD thesis and another student's.

The University of Cambridge insists there is no case to answer, and that he is the victim of a "vile campaign to undermine his credibility". Liverpool John Moores University, which awarded his doctorate, has also said his work had been checked and cleared.

Running 600 miles in six days

In 2023, Prof Arday became the youngest black professor in Cambridge's history at the age of 37. His memoir, titled Great and Unfortunate Things, will be published next month, in which he recounts being non-verbal until shortly before his 12th birthday and only learning to read and write at the age of 18.

Questions about Prof Arday's autobiographical details have been swirling in the academic world for years, and those questions have intensified during the ongoing plagiarism row.

On several occasions, he has described running 600 miles in six days from Edinburgh to London for charity, but on one occasion, he said the distance was 500 miles.

Experts in ultra-distance running cast doubt on whether this was possible for an unknown amateur athlete, given that the world record for a six-day run is 650 miles, which was achieved on a flat circuit with a large support team and medical help on standby, as opposed to an undulating road route with little or no backup.

Prof Arday has also said that he fell and suffered a hairline fracture on the 21st day of his 30-marathon challenge, causing his leg to swell to twice its normal size, but managed to carry on and run another nine marathons.

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"Running 100 miles in 24 hours is also perfectly possible, but it's very hard to keep that going for two more days, without good breaks for sleep. Not impossible but pretty unlikely.

"The 600 miles in six days is, again, not impossible, but would be remarkable, akin to the very best record-breaking ultra-runners. It seems odd that there appears to be no evidence of that. Usually runners are very keen to share news of runs like that on places such as Strava. If you're claiming to have done runs as impressive as those, you should provide evidence, which is very easy via GPS sports-watches."

It's been reported that there are no reports of these feats of endurance, except for his varying and changeable claims.

People are calling this liar and plagiarist "The Wes Moore of Cambridge."

Well that's a lie. I'm calling him that. But other people are invited to join in and call him the Wes Moore of Cambridge.

I just got an email:

"Too much eyeliner! He looks like a queerie!"

Sent by: Captain Jack Sparrow

posted by Disinformation Expert Ace at 03:40 PM

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