Professor Jason Arday - plagiarism etc

A product of the woke society where no one dare challenge anyone!

Prof Jason Arday has resigned from the University of Cambridge after The Telegraph revealed he falsely claimed to have published a book.

In a letter online, Prof Arday said he was resigning “with immediate effect” from his position at the university and Jesus College citing “unrelenting level of public scrutiny ”.

The announcement came hours after the university announced it was investigating him following new information his “academic qualifications and honorary appointments “

As I said. The university should have done due diligence, but they didn't. The problem is entirely their fault.

All very concerning how easily he has manipulated the system over the years.

This is what bothers me the most.

That, and the 10,000 signatures backing him up!

Failure to attribute is a common mistake in the first year of a Bachelor degree. It would be a serious concern by the final year of a first degree.

It is unbelievable that anyone could attain the post of Professor whilst lacking the academic rigour to attribute his sources. Just that lack alone would be sufficient to debar anyone from a high academic post.

His position is untenable regardless of any other factors. There are standards that colleagues and students should be able to expect from those teaching and supervising.

Hands up, I don't personally know whether any of these accusations are true, but if I was a betting lady I would put money on there being something wrong.
Yes students commit plagiarism, but it doesn't usually get them a Cambridge uni chair.

I dislike the complaint that this is bad for his mental health - anyone, Paula Venables, David Kelly, anyone in the public eye who is accused of misconduct, or bears some responsibility for things going wrong, it is bad for their mental health. Not just people with autism. And yet, if you don't have this diagnosis no-one says stop it, it's bullying.

Many autistic people would have found being on Q Time etc & the demands of a high-profile job far too stressful. He coped with that, so, like anyone else in his situation, he has to try to cope with the fall-out.

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And I just wonder who is paying the fees to Carter-Ruck, who are known to charge at least four times the rate of standard legal practices - @ (c) £400ph plus.

Mmm.
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Cafnas claims against Arday are of little comparative importance and will be duly investigated. The amount of press attention is disproportionate.

No it is not disproportionate.
Cambridge University publicised Arday as their 'poster boy', the youngest ever black Professor, I believe, accompanied by distinctive photographs hard to ignore.
For whatever reason investigations into Arday's work have revealed considerable discrepancies, particularly in his PHD thesis, but also unproven claims to other posts held in Africa and USA, work published and charitable enterprises.

Anyone who has completed a degree will know that warnings about plagiarism are stressed from the first essay, and the importance placed on correct citation of referencing of sources emphasised. Arday has offered interviews stating that he "should be held accountable for the mistakes I’ve made”, but attributes them to inadequate supervision and his autism and learning disabilities. He has also claimed that he is a victim of a “racially motivated” campaign to oust him from his Cambridge professorship and has become a “lightning rod” for criticism for diversity initiatives in higher education." (T.H.E.)
To become a Cambridge Professor is a considerable achievement and imparts high academic status.
To discover there are considerable discrepancies in work submitted and claims made about their causes is obviously a cause for concern, and has little to do with Arday's ethnicity, more with his abilities.

Primrose53

Wyllow3

I don't consider my post offensive, but I am open to you reporting it Primrose. (Truly).

If we read what Lemonjam is reporting and the still needed disintangements, then there is a "lot more to the story"

It is offensive because you are targeting me as the OP and accusing me of saying things I did not say. It was not intended to “mock or demean” as you accuse me of.

I repeat, an apology would be in order.

I have reread the OP it seems a perfectly straight forwrad presentation of the facts.

Bear in mind that in the papers today, someone was accused and convicted for claiming a whole series of degrees, including a Cambridge degree, which he did to have, to hold senior (non-medical) posts in the NHS. There have been cases where people have claimed fictitious medical qualifications to hold medical posts. These cases come up regularly.

This case has caught the public attention because he managed to fool a Cambridge University Faculty and because so many of his fictitious non-academic claims are so extreme. I cannot see what his past medical history has to do with it. The faults lie entirely with the university for not carrying out a full due diligence checks on him before they appointed him.

Wyllow3

I don't consider my post offensive, but I am open to you reporting it Primrose. (Truly).

If we read what Lemonjam is reporting and the still needed disintangements, then there is a "lot more to the story"

It is offensive because you are targeting me as the OP and accusing me of saying things I did not say. It was not intended to “mock or demean” as you accuse me of.

I repeat, an apology would be in order.

JenniRen

"My 15.28 post was in response to Jess20 15.25 post."

Oh, ok, misunderstood.

No worries 😊

I bet a lot of people are now frantically running around trying to cover their arses.
He must have had some real dirt on and control over people to get away with this for so long.

Al la Epstein type tactics.

This sort of thing will get worse with AI.

"My 15.28 post was in response to Jess20 15.25 post."

Oh, ok, misunderstood.

And like you JenniRen- I remain impartial until full facts known.

JenniRen

LemonJam

Was A1 sotware available in the year Arday completed his PHD- the subject of Cafnas claims?

I didn't say it was.
What I said was that is is an increasing problem with the rise of AI.

Because someone is autistic does not mean they are not highly intelligent or even without cunning and the means to deceive.

I feel no 'solidarity' with this person because I am impartial; however, it is concerning that the lives of others can be impacted by such fantasists.

My 15.28 post was in response to Jess20 15.25 post.

I agree with Jess20 that it's a good thing now for PHD students to run their theses through A1 software as a check but didn't think A1 was available when Arday did his PHD thesis.

The amount of press attention is disproportionate.

I dont think it is when this is a Cambridge University Professor.

And so many things he says, now need to be looked at.

LemonJam

Was A1 sotware available in the year Arday completed his PHD- the subject of Cafnas claims?

I didn't say it was.
What I said was that is is an increasing problem with the rise of AI.

Because someone is autistic does not mean they are not highly intelligent or even without cunning and the means to deceive.

I feel no 'solidarity' with this person because I am impartial; however, it is concerning that the lives of others can be impacted by such fantasists.

I absolutely agree Genevieve4 - they should be more of a focus. Cafnas claims against Arday are of little comparative importance and will be duly investigated. The amount of press attention is disproportionate.

I can be concerned about anyone in a responsible position who has made a career by telling very many lies, Political Leaders, MPs, Academics, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all.

I was responsible many years ago for providing plagiarism software to all UK universities - he could and should have been caught out years ago - it's unbelievable he still has a post in any academic institution

I'm much more concerned about the lies spouted by country leaders being left unchallenged & uncorrected...

Trump, Putin & Johnson (the top 3 that spring to mind) have regulary & frequently told such obvious whoppers that everyone knows are outright lies, but never seem to be addressed publically...

Surely these should be top & centre of all media publications & programs until they are apologised for & corrected by the said liar...

I don’t think any of that matters a fig LemonJam if all the claims by the Professor are total bunkum.He seems to fantasise with the truth about everything he does.Which does incline people to question absolutely everything he says!
Academics are very prone to infighting amongst themselves and even publicly diss each other, but this case goes further than plagiarism of thesis work in any case.

Was A1 sotware available in the year Arday completed his PHD- the subject of Cafnas claims?

And finally summarises and emphasises:

Solidarity

As I’ve indicated, academic integrity matters, and genuine mistakes should be corrected, as they often are. But academic integrity also depends on fairness, consistency and due process. It cannot become something enforced selectively according to a person’s ethnicity, identity or public prominence. Nor should allegations concerning scholarship become an excuse to attack someone’s disability, life history or credibility in unrelated areas

Arday deserves our full and unabashed solidarity, not because anyone is beyond accountability or making mistakes but because he is a human being, entitled to fairness, dignity, and due process Whatever the outcome of any inquiry, no one should be subjected to an ideologically driven campaign that seeks to reduce a person’s whole life and work to a political battleground.

Ultimately, what is happening to Arday is not just about one individual. It is about the conditions under which all academics live and work. If Arday’s character, history, and life’s work can be discredited by an ideologically motivated campaign against him due to what he symbolises: a Black, disabled working class man who has made it into the highest levels of university, then without solidarity, nobody but the most privileged is immune. This is not just a dispute about academic integrity, then but a warning about how politically motivated attacks can function to intimidate, isolate, and delegitimise scholars whose mere presence challenges the deeply entrenched hierarchies of British academia

I think it's quite easy to do if you're saving verbatim chunks of research papers on your computer to return to with the intent to refer to those ideas in the piece you are writing - it's a way of note taking. However, it's risky as it's easy to mistakenly copy and paste it instead of summarizing/analysing it to refer to in your writing while obviously quite correctly referencing the author. What surprises me is people not running their work through some sort of plagiarism detection program before publishing if they use this method of keeping notes.