Jason Arday found dead today.

Primrose53

Casdon

Primrose53

Whitewavemark2

Don’t you think that now the man is dead , crawling over his entrails is in very poor taste?

By all means question process and what led up to this but to continue going over Arday’s life is grim.

How would it appear if we took it into our heads to crawl over Widdecombes failures after her death. It simply isn’t done, or at least a decent interval should take place.

There have been some truly vile comments made about Anne Widdecombe after her death. She was barely cold before some people were rushing to say horrible things about her, her politics and her Party. A lot of it was lies and they were shared on here too.

When did two wrongs start making a right?

Wwm2 posed a question and said “it simply isn’t done”. I answered it truthfully. There WERE vile things said about AW and they are still on here so people can check what they actually said.

primrose when I said that “it isn’t done” I was arguing that it isn’t done either colloquially, or amongst a group of people as it is generally considered bad form.

Not that it hadn’t been done. I am more than aware of how people overstep the mark, but if we could keep to accepted norms it would oil the wheels and be a much pleasanter place.

greyfur16

Primrose53

Whitewavemark2

Don’t you think that now the man is dead , crawling over his entrails is in very poor taste?

By all means question process and what led up to this but to continue going over Arday’s life is grim.

How would it appear if we took it into our heads to crawl over Widdecombes failures after her death. It simply isn’t done, or at least a decent interval should take place.

There have been some truly vile comments made about Anne Widdecombe after her death. She was barely cold before some people were rushing to say horrible things about her, her politics and her Party. A lot of it was lies and they were shared on here too.

Oh dear, that smacks of whataboutery. Refresh my memory about these vile comments please?

That's my view, too.

I have never (and would never) have said anything negative about AW after her death, but the horrible 'race card' comments should, IMO be held against those who made them in the JA case.

apple.news/AAaJ12x-oTc2lt6tqCjHtmQ

Am fully in support of an independent investigation into the witch hunt Jason Arday endured until he could endure it no longer so glad to see that this is actively being sought. And as Arday’s friend and fellow professor at Cambridge university has said, the investigation into Arday should go ahead n order to see what we can learn from this.
Certainly the fact that other notable professors have been discovered to be guilty of plagiarism and yet they did not suffer such a public evisceration is key here.
Some very uncomfortable and inconvenient truths need to be explored in order to stop this ever happening again.

Sorry missed out the name of Arday’s friend and fellow professor. Simon Baron Cohen.

My memory of gransnet discussions after AW’s murder, is that the consensus was nobody should face death in the way AW had. Some posters commented they didn’t agree with her politics but were horrified by her murder

In JA’s case imo there was a growing number of increasingly critical posts which implied he’d lied, exaggerated,n been awarded an professor ship ie that he was seen as a poster boy for EID rather than a man whose success was well deserved.

It’s a tragedy of colossal proportions. A man driven through take his own life after such criticism questioning not only his academic achievements but all aspects of his personal story. On this thread, the suggestion he lied about an ASD diagnosis.
RIP Jason Arday

FriedGreenTomatoes2 Wed 05-Aug-26 12:30:04
Seems Arday WAS not averse to playing the race card after all.

There you go.

awful.

US black men - full adults - were called "boy" as a demeaning term, and remember how much criticism came from US academic

its worth recalling:

"Calling an adult Black man “boy” in the United States is deeply offensive and carries a heavy racist history. During the eras of slavery and Jim Crow, white people used the term deliberately to deny Black men status, respect, and manhood.
White employers and authorities used the word to address grown Black men instead of "Mister" or "Sir"

(AI with full references - anyway, if you have even watched one old film or indeed read famous books like To Kill a Mockingbird it will be familiar)

sorry, forgot to add the academic who attacked Arday, it was of course Nathan Cofnas, who is from the USA. and knows his history d* well.

Didn't Cofnas have to 'leave' Cambridge because of his racist outpouring?

I had to look the details up.
He was sacked from Cambridge in 2024 for his excessively racist views.

Here is the Cambridge Varsity Magazine report.

www.varsity.co.uk/news/27420

It didn't shut him up, of course - he just got more bitter and attacking to Jason Arday specifically and others generally. He denies being racist - but is recorded as saying

In controversial blog posts, Cofnas argued in favour of a hereditarian revolution and said the number of black professors at Harvard would “approach zero” in a meritocracy

Cofnas claimed: Blacks would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.

So make ones own mind up?

There are also U tube interviews/talk shows I found (just google) where Black students describe what it is still like at Cambridge as regards some attitudes to them, and specifically being taught Philosophy by Cofnas.

Well now the people who condemned pile ons seem to be having a pile on of their own.

Is it ok to do it for unpleasant people?

Many posters have addressed this again and again Wyllow, the allegations against cofnas dont make what arday said true or negate the fact that arday contacted the police about the journalist ( not cofnas) who was investigating.
All the complaints by students against cofnas were dismissed by Cambridge i understand.

Maremia

Didn't Cofnas have to 'leave' Cambridge because of his racist outpouring?

He was sacked. Nathan Cofnas has published research claiming that race is linked to intelligence and that "under a collar blind system" black people would disappear from almost all high profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.

He was sacked by Cambridge University in the wake of the controversy he caused by his racist comments and the hostile environment he created.

With the support of the Free Speech union, and after raising £85,000 on the FSU website, Cofnas then sued Emmanuel College in August 2024 for 'belief discrimination' evidently happy to use discrimination law when it suited him. He lost his case against the university- judgement comments available on line..

A petition calling for his dismissal had been signed by 1,200 students and fellow academics and 58 students had launched a formal complaint against him. One of those students, Jacob Bowden, a philosophy student, approached the Observer newspaper and it lead to an Observer article today. Bowed said he was "very surprised to see Cofnas receive positive attention in the media in recent weeks".

Outside of the UK Cafnas has come under scrutiny, e.g CNN for his actions and back story- very much less so in the UK until today's Observer article 'the man at the centre of Arday plagiarism row, was dismissed for views on race reporting" .

The Observer duly reported that Cafnas had received numerous complaints from students who alleged that he was endorsing the logic of a eugenist. That Cafnas had called for a revolution against the DEI devil and for people to accept that talent is not distributed equally within or across groups

Cafnas now works at Ghent University in Belgium, regularly posting on X and Substack about his race related views.

Doodledog

greyfur16

Primrose53

Whitewavemark2

Don’t you think that now the man is dead , crawling over his entrails is in very poor taste?

By all means question process and what led up to this but to continue going over Arday’s life is grim.

How would it appear if we took it into our heads to crawl over Widdecombes failures after her death. It simply isn’t done, or at least a decent interval should take place.

There have been some truly vile comments made about Anne Widdecombe after her death. She was barely cold before some people were rushing to say horrible things about her, her politics and her Party. A lot of it was lies and they were shared on here too.

Oh dear, that smacks of whataboutery. Refresh my memory about these vile comments please?

That's my view, too.

I have never (and would never) have said anything negative about AW after her death, but the horrible 'race card' comments should, IMO be held against those who made them in the JA case.

Doodledog your comments here sound as if you may want a little witch hunt of your own.

Galaxy

Many posters have addressed this again and again Wyllow, the allegations against cofnas dont make what arday said true or negate the fact that arday contacted the police about the journalist ( not cofnas) who was investigating.
All the complaints by students against cofnas were dismissed by Cambridge i understand.

Complaints and concerns- petition signed by 1.200 students and fellow academics dismissed by Cambridge University?

See Observer newspaper article today - some of which outlined in 23.08 post.

To be balanced and even handed- is what Cafnas has said true?

Cafnas not only 'plays the race card' ( as attributed to Arday in various posts) - Cafnas actively deals them out to assert his race related views.

We’re not here to debate Cofnas, tho I do see that it suits some people to do so instead of addressing the elephant in the room…the unsuitability of Jason Arday for a Professorship at Cambridge.
The University say that new evidence of his academic achievements meant they would be assessing the way he was given his job ( too late now sadly.) Are they just covering their backs as they know full well he shouldn’t have been given the job or did they just believe everything without checks?
Will they now reassess all their professors and academic references? I think they should, and all other Universities should too.

Te suitability or otherwise for Arday's promotion to his Cambridge University post is not exclusive form any discussion about Cafans and his race related views.

Not all posters wish to absent or excuse Cafnas for his contribution to this the tragic affair.

sorry for typos...

And the pile on into a man’s personality and career continues.

And yet has been condemned as a terrible thing to do.

All the stuff about Cofnas has been said many times before in this thread so this really is just a little pile on party that’s giving the participants some kind of mutual satisfaction.

🤔

Well Lathyrus it gives them someone to blame and reinforces the ‘it’s all about race’ argument when in fact it would be just the same if JA had been white, everyone would have been bemused that all the outlandish claims had been swallowed whole.
I think this discussion is just going around in circles now tho as we all have our own views on it.

There’s something quite queasy about it somehow

My other point is that whatever our differing views I doubt there’s a single poster that doesn’t think that Jason Arday’s sad end is anything other than tragic, as all suicides are .

Cafnas has showed no interest in accusing white peers of plagiarism.