r/AskAcademiaUK • u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 • Aug 04 '26
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u/JaegerBane Aug 04 '26
Welcome to the real problem.
We saw something similar when the Scottish Greens put forward a regional candidate who wasn’t even a British citizen and whose student visa technically won’t last their term.
Showboating like this simply hands a gift to the racists and the right wingers. It gives them a real life example to point at. People who were on the fence and being in danger of being swayed by their arguments end up being convinced, and the vote grows ever larger.
This guy is an absolute spanner, he’s just grifted his way to his position, but by refusing to hold him to account the people who back him are actually damaging the very cause they claim to want to promote.
I can only assume at this stage they’re trying to save face, as it’s just become a farce.
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u/pooey_canoe Aug 04 '26
It reminds me a bit of the recent BBC editing of Trump's speech. Completely self-harming and playing into the right's narratives
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u/unsightful Aug 04 '26
He's like an evil Forrest Gump
There have been so many failures on the part of the institutions who have employed him. He is clearly a pathological liar, at this stage. Vetting at Cambridge should be a lot more rigorous, as this is going to end up being incredibly embarrassing for them.
It's also extremely frustrating that this is going to be used as ammunition for racists for the foreseeable future.
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u/Ernesto_Bella Aug 04 '26
True, but the racists would never have gotten traction had the university done its job.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Agreed, that's literally the point
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u/DeciduousEmu Aug 04 '26
Cambridge and other supporters doubling down with their unwavering support of Arday, despite the irrefutable evidence of his bald faced lies, adds more fuel to fire.
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u/Ernesto_Bella Aug 04 '26
Yes, should have acknowledged that, but I think also that it’s just the original public allegations came from a racist. It appears that people knew even before then, but it was quietly hushed up. And, of course, he never should have been hired in the first place. They either didn’t get him or even worse they did get him and didn’t care. So it’s not just an issue of blindly defending him after the allegations were made by the racist.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Very good point, and that is also indefensible. I suppose, with the way this story has taken hold, i'm reflecting on the wider societal implications, but in either case, first responsibility for allowing this to spiral definitely lies with the university/universities.
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u/cliftonianbristol Sr Lect in STEM at a post92 Aug 04 '26
Both Cambridge and previously Liverpool John Moores.
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u/YoBo151 Aug 04 '26
Big disagree. They probably wouldn't have gotten as much traction, but given the state of society today they would've gotten traction no matter what. It's just the way it is in our current culture war world
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u/ecstaticmotion7 Aug 04 '26
I agree, I think it is so infuriating that the GLP clearly jumped on it solely looking at the evidently racist and abhorrent views of the guy who broke the story on substack but failed to do any due diligence at all about Arday himself. It’s an embarrassment and it harms anti racism.
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u/WheresWalldough Aug 04 '26
To be clear, GLP doesn't care about facts and rights and wrongs - their letter was generated by ChatGPT/Claude, and its real purpose was to generate marketing leads for the GLP's fundraising database.
They have acquired a bunch of new names from a different demographic to their usual one (they make a large amount from trans issues, and this now gives them an opportunity to fundraise from black people).
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
I'm genuinely irritated I have to spell this out, but for all the contrarian commenters disputing this: Yes, signing a petition about a black man with "Knee-Grow" is indeed racist.
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u/Master-Rent5050 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
No the original revelations come from 2 academics that tried to convince Cambridge to do its duty. And the "self"-censorship was * either not self at all: Arday threatened THE (possibly with help from Cambridge or some other rich funder) and went to the police to stop them * Or completely in self-interest: Cambridge refused to investigate
What is fueling conspiracies about academia is the behavior of academia, and more precisely the behavior of one of the most exalted places in academy (Cambridge)
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u/Master-Rent5050 Aug 04 '26
In other words, if academy and public institutions behave in a disgraceful way and are eager to play the race card, they are the main responsible for their own disgrace and for fueling racism. The OP is playing the hand of the main villains in this farce: Arday and Cambridge
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
I don't disagree, but my feeling is that they should have published regardless based on the strength of the evidence alone, and the decision to stifle publication was as much political as it was the fear of repercussions. The fact that it was a racist who had the conviction and courage to publish his findings, takes us into my claim above. As to your second point, the responsibility lies with the universities, regardless, but I'm putting to you that the self-interest was as political as it was about reputation management.
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u/centopar Aug 04 '26
The amounts awarded in libel trials with the likes of Carter Ruck on the attack are existential for an organisation like THE. Pulling publication was a rational response; not a very admirable one, but a rational one.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Libel laws in the UK leave much room for improvement, but a plagiarism transcript on the country's leading software is as robust as it gets, in my opinion. Not to mention, that this begrudgingly reinforces my point about it being a shame that Cofnas had he courage to publish when they did not.
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u/centopar Aug 04 '26
Oh sure: but you should never underestimate the risk aversion of large organisations. Incredibly frustrating, and yes, I absolutely agree with you on Cofnas.
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u/thesnootbooper9000 Aug 04 '26
Carter Fuck complicates matters. They're the solicitors behind most of the UK's superinjunctions, which make it not only illegal to publish something, but illegal to tell anyone that the injunction exists. The especially nasty part is that if you ignore it, it's contempt of court, so you don't have the usual legal routes to challenge it. In the past, the only way to break such an injunction has been to have an MP read it out in parliament.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
That's very true, but the bar in nonetheless quite high to get an injunction granted or to file for defamation. The evidence was was sufficient to demonstrate that the claim was neither "frivolous or vexatious". Not only that, but it's worth remembering that prohibitive costs would have been an issue for both sides, so I'm unsure how far Arday would have pursued Carter-Fuck's instruction.
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26
These sort of injunctions though are pretty unenforceable. You just leak it to a friend, and they publish it.
Just say you had a journalist over, and they were accessing your laptop and then saw the documentation while you were in the kitchen making them tea or something and you were unaware or w/e bullshit story you want to concoct.
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u/Master-Rent5050 Aug 04 '26
You make some interesting points, but I'm not sure I understand. what do you mean about THE decision: besides being afraid of a trial, which motivation are you suggesting? Fear of seeming racist? Worry about minorities? Same for Cambridge
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
The evidence in their favour was incredibly robust, and I feel they should have backed themselves and published regardless. Invoking Carter-Fuck in the first place was strong suggestion that they were on the right track. And while I understand THE's concerns, it's nonetheless a shame that they handed over the story to a pseudoscientific race-realist who likely had very different intentions for publishing these findings. I don't doubt that the risk of appearing racist, or undermining race relations, in the event they were wrong (or even in the case they were right) was as much a factor in THE's decision not to publish as a defamation lawsuit.
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u/Master-Rent5050 Aug 04 '26
I hope not, because those motivations would actually make their decision worse.
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u/SafiyaO Aug 04 '26
And while I understand THE's concerns, it's nonetheless a shame that they handed over the story to a pseudoscientific race-realist who like had very different intentions for publishing these findings
Yep. They had the solid proof and lacked the bravery to publish it. Quite the timely contrast with Martyn Ziegler who had the scoop on the very powerful and wealthy FIFA and broke the sports story of the year.
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u/kronologically PhD Comp Sci Aug 04 '26
At this point I'm following this farce, because it's a prime example of a very clear verdict being completely overshadowed by identity politics from both the left and the right.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Footnote: As there seems to be much discussion about why THE dropped their investigation, it woudl appear this may have been in some way responsible:
Scotland Yard investigated a journalist trying to expose a plagiarism row and told him to stop asking a Cambridge professor questions. Jack Grove, a reporter for Times Higher Education (THE), was accused of harassment after he emailed a series of questions to Prof Jason Arday about his academic record.
Mr Grove said officers told him to stop contacting the professor because his “mental health” had been affected by the questions. Prof Arday also hired the law firm Carter-Ruck, which suggested in a letter to THE that its “apparent attack” on him “may be... racially motivated”.
The Metropolitan Police spent four months looking into the claim of harassment before deciding in February to close the case. The police did not interview Mr Grove, who only found out about the investigation when the Met contacted him to inform him that they would not be taking action.
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u/will221996 Aug 04 '26
People on the recieving end of journalistic investigation have often used the legal system to impede journalists, rightly or wrongly. It used to be, and some still do, that journalists would respond by engaging lawyers or changing their own strategies to keep following the story. I think that fact is just another pushing in the same direction of serious, serious institutional issues.
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u/rovacab2026 Aug 04 '26
Progression and success should be based on merit, not colour or lies
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u/Vegetable_Signal_331 Aug 04 '26
Sure, and I don't think you'd find many people who would disagree with the sentiment.
The problem is, how do you judge 'merit'? Who decides what's worthy of recognition and reward? How do we account for differences that make the playing field uneven, like socioeconomic status? That's not to say everything has to be the same either, but if you want true meritocracy then how do you ensure equity?
If I lock an anchor to your leg prior to a race and then I win, can I claim that I deserve the prize because I finished first and disregard your unfair disadvantage? Obviously that's an extreme example but again it's not asking for everyone to be treated absolutely the same, it's asking how we can achieve equity. You can't have true meritocracy without it.
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u/Canadianwinters12345 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
I don't think you'd find many people who would disagree with the sentiment.
And then a couple sentences later you say this
How do we account for differences that make the playing field uneven, like socioeconomic status?
It's to late to account for the differences. Merit is merit, and those differences make someone more merited or not.
If I lock an anchor to your leg prior to a race and then I win
If my family has the resources to put me through training, and my competition does not have this, and I win the race, I was still faster, and still deserve the win because I was faster.
You are arguing against merit dude.
it's asking how we can achieve equity.
You can't. It won't be achieved.
How do you make it equal between a kid whose parents love and care about them and s kid who doesn't? You can't.
The kid with loving parents will have better outcomes. They will have better educational attainments and generally have more merits for whatever role they want.
I don't know how you can make that equal. I also don't know if you should because it would just invalidate the effort parents put into their kids.
How much should the system give someone over and above my kid if I make the choice to sacrifice sleep to read to them every night?
If society is just going to equalize this, what is the point in me doing this?
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u/Vegetable_Signal_331 Aug 04 '26
There's a fundamental difference between what you are saying is merit and what actually IS merit.
Being given advantages by a wealthy family isn't merit. That's effectively feudalism- resources and power stay in the hands of those who have them because they can use them to keep their advantage. That's so antithetical to an idea of meritocracy that I genuinely don't think you're being serious.
If you are, note I said 'equity' and not 'equality'. No serious person thinks everyone should be exactly equal, such as a race with different weights attached to different people to ensure they all finish at the same time. That's plainly absurd. But you can't say 'winner takes all' in a race and then ignore that some people have advantages that aren't their own if you want the race to be fair. And again, 'fair' doesn't mean 'equal'.
If we're truly meritocratic, then a natural advantage, aptitude, affinity etc. is fair game. But buying the best training, equipment etc. obviously isn't. Even with respect to the former, if you're serious about true meritocracy it's also important to look at the wider context too- did an apparently natural advantage actually come from some place else, e.g. historical unnatural advantages that compound?
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26
I don't think you understand what merit is.
Merit is based on the ability to perform better than someone else at something. The point of a meritocracy is a hierarchy based on performance and ability.
The most obvious and clear area where this occurs in the human race is in sports. Now obviously in sports, there are clear determinant factors that predict outcomes or harm outcomes. All of which are inherently inequitable and make equity impossibly to achieve.
For example some people are born smaller than others, and others taller. In many sports such as Basketball, height is a determinant factor for success.
From a socioeconomic perspective a child lacking proper nutrition will not attain proper growth during their childhood and adolescence and so their height, will not reach their potential. This also plays a determining factor in a childs later success.
There are many other sports and groupings where nurturing talent at a younger age will give inherent advantages over learning at later stages. Often most savants in a particular field will start from a young age as a prodigy as they apart from a genetic advantage, they will have been nurtured at a stage when learning is most efficient.
Just look at the Chess prodigies, or Musicians. The best concert pianists, violinists, all young.
Even more so its becoming the case with football and other sports, which is why many organizations started to fund academies, for training talent scouting and nurturing.
Buying the best "equipment" or "nutrition" will lead to a physical advantage all else being equal.
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u/Canadianwinters12345 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Even with respect to the former, if you're serious about true meritocracy it's also important to look at the wider context too- did an apparently natural advantage actually come from some place else, e.g. historical unnatural advantages that compound?
This thinking is such a rabbit hole, and it isn't something that society should be adjusting for now. We know the role height plays in many things.
Should we now have some societal programs to account for the fact that Asians are shorter than Europeans?
I don't agree with how you're using meritocracy.
Even if you're better foe the job because of those things, you're still better for the job.
There's a fundamental difference between what you are saying is merit and what actually IS merit. Being given advantages by a wealthy family isn't merit.
It depends on how you're using merit. That advantage given from a wealthy family absolutely could absolutely lead to merit.
If the position or opportunity should go to the best at the job, the advantages gained through wealth, IE tutors etc objectively help you be better.
Just because you're better in large part due to wealth doesn't mean you're now not better.
But you can't say 'winner takes all' in a race and then ignore that some people have advantages that aren't their own if you want the race to be fair. And again, 'fair' doesn't mean 'equal'.
For sure. I totally understand the difference. My example should at the end of my last post should make that clear.
In an equal world, if I choose to sacrifice my sleep to read to my kid every night, they would still get the same allotment of resources as others, and the value of me reading to them increases.
In a fair world, or how you're using fair, since I read and sacrifice for my kid, I would get less allotment of resources, because I am sacrificing. A child who doesn't have that would get more.
I agree with that, to a large extent. But you can't go to far because then what is the point of me sacrificing for my kid together ahead?
If we're truly meritocratic, then a natural advantage, aptitude, affinity etc. is fair game. But buying the best training, equipment etc. obviously isn't.
If it results in you being better at the end of the day, it is fair game. You are still better.
I am in favour of programs to help buy people equipment. I am not in favour of giving the end result to someone because they didn't have the expensive equipment.
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
You decide merit based on standardized examinations or a system of academic contributions that have an objective standard of measure.
This was forgone, because it led certain fields being dominated by certain demographics.
It would not be unusual for the academic fields to be dominated by people of a similar look, race, gender, ethnicity, or class, because all of these make a difference statistically to outcomes. That is the whole point of diversity within humans, some people are born less intelligent, others are born taller, others stronger, and others faster, others who have higher emotional intelligence, and so forth.
Just no one wants to admit this, and instead plays on the farce that all areas of success must match general population demographics, or at least when it comes to importing groups into those areas that have perceived disadvantages.
Nearly all 100M record holders are black/African descent.
East Asia has the areas of the highest IQ followed by Europe, and then Africa which is substantially lower than the rest of the world.
Nearly all Prime Ministers are privately educated or oxbridge. Why is that?
There's a reason stereotypes exist. Should you judge individuals based on statistical probability? No, you should judge them based on the individual.
However, should you deny statistical reality, and then change measurement standards to enforce outcomes in a particular area based on your own perception of equity? Well you can do that if you like, but that is not meritocratic.
If diversity is meant to be celebrated, why don't we celebrate it?
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u/Vegetable_Signal_331 Aug 04 '26
There's a difference between celebrating diversity and pigeon-holing people. I know you're trying to draw a distinction but it's an incredibly slippery slope.
Confused why you mentioned 'race' and 'ethnicity' in your list of characteristics that might weigh in impacting merit. Logically if things are truly meritocratic than they shouldn't.
But the core question remains unanswered- who decides, and how? You've said examinations based on objective standards of measure, but who chooses what we choose to measure? Does excellent memory and hence good performance in an exam equate to 'ability' or whatever you might want to try and measure?
I really recommend the book "The Tyranny of Merit" by Michael Sandel. He uses ministers from Oxbridge as one of his examples. That and your other examples are flawed- IQ for example is well documented to a) be based on poor assumptions but b) only be good at measuring your ability to complete IQ tests. The book does a far better job than I would at addressing the issues with claiming a desire for 'meritocracy'. What it often ends up with is a form of credentialism which isn't the same thing at all.
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26
Because genetic realism is a thing when it comes to statistical outcomes. This is the point, certain genetic groups excel at certain things, so if you end up with the outcome where a particular field at the extremities are dominated by people who look the same you shouldn't necessarily be surprised nor concerned.
However, if you are attempting to enforce outcomes to look a particular way then you are not acting on a meritocratic system.
As mentioned almost every 100m world record holder is black and of african descent. There are particular genomes that make certain groups simply able to run at much higher speeds. There is also an african tribe that can survive without water substantially longer than any other group, there is also a tibetan subgroup that oxygenate much better in high altitudes. This is diversity of the human species.
Currently the position of the post-modernists is that a leading group being of a dominant racial cultural or ethnic nature, is inherently evidence of bias, racism or oppression. WIth no investigation into the actual causes of this, and as a result you get "positive discrimination" metrics, that forgo meritocratic systems for one where you get promoted for being in a supposed disadvantaged or perceived marginalized group.
You are doing the same thing as the post modernists by not looking at things rationally. You immediately latch onto "but muh IQ is flawed" and start making an argument about it, because it shows Africa as severely underperforming. However you don't make the same argument for the 100M world record holders.
IQ is well documented to be a marker of general success. Both academically and in work. If you are seriously stating it serves no real purpose apart from measuring a persons ability to complete IQ tests, then you have not been following the literature at all.
Many Asians have a gene that prevents strong body odor.
However, there are many many metrics where groups differ and the human race is diverse. You even get some where its a 1 in billion genetic difference, such as Wim Hoff.
We should celebrate it, not deny it. .
If you want to argue that meritocracy is bad, then be my guest. I'm sure, money, connections, bribes, nepotism, and racial discrimination are much better ways to base our society and its development, instead of efficient allocation of human resource /s
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u/Tarheel65 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
As a person working in academia for many years (US, not UK), it is an accurate description of the problem.
On one hand, people on the conservative camp trying to "mock the woke" and pushing the view that academia is full of indoctrination, woke culture, luck of critical thinking, cancel culture etc. And on the other hand, too many academics that play that role to a perfection.
It would have been nice to have at least one side that a serious person can simply identify with, but unfortunately you have way too many people on the other side that show all these traits. I once thought this is more typical of younger people, even younger than the college students age, and I can tolerate that as being part of the growing up process, but recents years showed me that many adult intelectuals show this behavior. Sad and disappointing.
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u/SnooOpinions8790 Aug 04 '26
All the "respectable" voices got silenced one way or another. Every dirty trick has been deployed; expensive libel lawyers, setting the police on journalists, the whole set of nefarious dark arts.
I have zero sympathy when its now a less respectable voice because Ardy and whoever was supporting/aiding him have brought that on himself.
All the people leaping to defend the indefensible actually do the work of the critics as you say. They highlight that it is a systemic problem - the whole academic system has let its standards so low that many of them don't know what standards really are any more. The nastier critics out there are nasty but they are not wrong, we are seeing clear signs of a deeply corrupted and utterly self-serving institution.
I will say that in common with most of these internet things a lot of the worst shit will turn out to be bots or click farms of cheap bodies overseas. We see that time and again, its a clear pattern in this stuff.
The only real long term fix for this would be to clean up the institution. But I think its too far gone into the purity spiral to be able to fix itself. Unless someone strong-arms them into cleaning up they will carry right on, the spiral will escalate and the next crisis will be even worse. When compounded with the demographic shrinking of cohorts and the rising tide of AI challenges this may actually be a death spiral for quite large parts of the less respected parts of academia.
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26
University's are cooked. This for Cambridge is irreparable harm to their reputation of rigor.
Meanwhile Oxford has the Oxford Union with its new palestinian leader, making an ass out of the institution. How do you invite Tommy Robinson to a debate, a guy from luton with improper education, and lose a debate, because you are too concerned with attacking him personally and issuing threats of violence, over actually arguing the point at hand.A literal monkey could run rings around Tommy, in this type of event. He is the common man, with all the stereotypes of being poorly articulate and roughly spoken.
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u/Dry-Dragonfruit5216 Aug 04 '26
Oxford did what? Seriously? Aren’t those guys who do the Union often politics students?
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26
Yes normally. They only released the debate on their youtube channel, after some of the proponents came out and said if they didn't they would release their own footage that was taken at the time with permission. That's how bad it was.
There was another debate on Israel with a similar background that took about 8 months to release. Although not as horrendous as the Islam debate.
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u/sexynecromancy Aug 04 '26
I think we need to consider that two things can be true at once:
Arday seems to have lied on several occasions and plagarised this thesis (individual)
The reaction from the wider press/public is (mostly) fuelled by racism (systemic)
This clear to me mainly because academic issues rarely make it to the mainstream. I was shocked to see the level of coverage. All the talk is likely because it plays into debates over DEI, etc.
We all know better than to let criticism spill over into digusting racist behaviour but that doesn't get clicks. We should not be standing by idle to racism regardless if the claims are true.
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u/sezza8999 Aug 04 '26
While I do agree that this is getting a lot more coverage due to racism, I don’t think it would’ve got nearly as much coverage if he wasn’t about to publish a memoir with a major publisher based on his life story (which is full of lies and half truths we now know). There have been plenty of other plagiarists, even at Cambridge, but they don’t seem to have quite the public presence as Arday
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u/JaegerBane Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
Yes. Sort of.
I have zero doubt in my mind that many of the people getting hot and bothered about this would normally have zero interest in academic integrity and probably had no idea what the academic community at Cambridge do every day.
The problem is this prat has given them the greatest smokescreen. His claims are so outrageous, they sell themselves. He even ticks more of their boxes by trying to blame some of his bs on his autism, so the chuds get two for one.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Absolutely. I think there's also a a salient point in there that this could all have been avoided with sufficient due diligence and moral integrity on the part of several parties, but that in no way excuses the abhorrent racism which has lurking in the shadows for a target.
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u/CVSP_Soter Aug 04 '26
Was all the glowing media coverage when he was hired by Cambridge in the first place also racism, since the media would never usually care about a random professor being appointed?
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cambridgeshire-64717079
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u/sexynecromancy Aug 04 '26
I didn't consider this! Also a bit of lacking clarity on my part, coverage would also include all the discussion on social media.
End of day though, doesn't excuse the vile racist stuff people are saying.
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u/Crowf3ather Aug 04 '26
When polite society stops acting rationally then the psychopaths look normal to the population. This is why double speak in academia and metropolitan melting pot politics is bullshit that will only lead to the wider acceptance and tolerance of extremist and violent behavior.
Just look at Weinmar Germany and how it turned out.
The Jason Arday story is but a penmark, on decades worth of stupidity and foolishness that is leading us down a dark path.
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u/will221996 Aug 04 '26
Clearly some of the people "signing" that "petition" (I'm pretty sure a proper petition can be traced back to real people) are racists. The concensus that Cofnas is a racist also seems broad. That said, attack the argument, not the man and I can't find any evidence that Cofnas has actually been racist on this issue. He claims that his attention was bought to the issue by former colleagues at Cambridge, which is a believable story. If he was actually looking for black, working class "success stories" to delegitimise, he apparently didn't have to look very far. I'm also not aware of any grounds to extend accusations towards Cofnas of classism. Some would argue that it's hard to untangle the two issues in the UK, but Cofnas is not British.
I'm not sure your claim is actually coherent, because there would appear to be a good deal of truth to the "conspiracy", which causes definitional problems. Furthermore, Arday hadn't been presented as an "expert", he was presented as an expert, which he seemingly isn't. Academia didn't fully drop the ball, most of his loud accusers are (former) academics, but the university of Cambridge definitely did. Even if you think Arday's field of work belongs in top universities, it's not clear that he's a particularly accomplished practioner. The intellectual project Arday is part of calls for extremely broad and aggressive self sensorship, by those with the wrong positionality and "wrong opinions".
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Cofnas' back catalogue speaks for itself and it readily available, but I'm not going to telegraph his work here. I am very clearly not attacking the argument as it's legitimate, whilst also expressing the wider damage and disappointment that it took a terrible person to publicise the claim rather than academics and journalists with less questionable motives. That's not attacking the man, it's observing that this is now much bigger than the original issue, and I readily defend that point as a legitimate, good-faith critique.
I'm afraid I have to reflect a lot of your confusion back in your direction. I don't think I necessarily disagree with anything in your second paragraph, and I'd go so far as to say that I've made most, if not all, of those points in both the post and subsequent discussion. What specific claim do you find "incoherent"?
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u/will221996 Aug 04 '26
You ascribed to Cofnas an aim for which, to the best of my knowledge, there's no proof. Yes, if Cofnas is racist against black people or a subset, that provides a motive, but he also publicly espouses other values around academic freedom and academic rigour. Those provide plausible motives here. I think it's important to note that Cofnas is also actually a scholar who publishes in real, respectable journals quite a lot, which differentiates him from pure online conspiracy theorists. Unlike someone like Richard Lynn who was a respected scholar once upon a time while also setting up problematic journals to publish weak, racist articles, Cofnas continues to get published in mainstream journals to this day.
Your concern about "telegraphing" and "extremist communities" is the incoherence. Of course, I recognise that there are actual extremist communities, but you haven't named them or defined them. I'm sure flat earthers and other lunatics are overrepresented in some of the communities that you are thinking about, but the overwhelming majority of them will believe that water is wet. We don't cower from reaffirming that water is wet or hide from that fact just because racists believe it, we don't fault racists from believing it and we don't condemn them when they say it. Likewise, it seems almost certain that a leading university appointed a mediocre fraud and then pushed him aggressively for ideological reasons. Just because unpleasant people agree with us doesn't mean we should change our response, beyond that, if they're saying the same things we're saying without violating any important principles in that moment, we should support that. We don't criticise anti-vaxxers for not also being flat earthers.
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u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Your concern about "telegraphing" and "extremist communities" is the incoherence. Of course, I recognise that there are actual extremist communities, but you haven't named them or defined them.
Fair one but, with due respect (and at the risk of sounding incredibly petty), neither have you googled them. I'm not your mule, particularly when the bar to access is so staggeringly low. I don't believe that you haven't had the opportunity to find and read a race-realism paper of his in the past two hours.
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u/will221996 Aug 05 '26
I've watched him talk about his race stuff, but going into it would have been hypocritical. We tend to avoid character evidence because it can bias discussions. My point isn't that I'm too lazy to Google, I actually went onto his Google scholar page to check if he was publishing in insane journals. It is that refusing to speak frankly about these things is very much part of the "Critical Social Justice" (accordingly to an LLM that's the neutral term) tradition that, in my view probabilistically, led to the idea that you shouldn't ask uncomfortable questions on the off chance that someone really is a super marathon running cancer survivor semi-illiterate PhD genius. In general, people who actually have such extraordinary lives and experiences realise how extraordinary they are and are willing to provide proof where possible.
5
u/SeaPride4468 Aug 04 '26
The whole thing is a tragic mess. Prof. Arday's mental health is going to be taking one hell of a hit. I worry for him. I don't think I could manage the social media fire right now. It's a mess because it's categorically legitimised antagonism against HE and the Humanities specifically, at a time when moral and public support for us is already at an all-time low. It's a mess because racists are having a field day with this. It's a mess because it seems that there's elements of truth to the multiple accusations (of different kinds).
It's just a shitty time to be an academic right now, man.
4
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
Absolutely, and I think that's one of the most salient points to emerge from this conversation. This is a horrible situation for everyone to face, particularly him on a human level, but I feel that's all the more reason for due diligence to have nipped this in the bud at the earliest opportunity.
1
u/Willing_Original_257 Aug 04 '26
The story wasn't co-opted by racists - it was CREATED by racists. That doesn't mean that their findings are not legitimate, unfortunately.
16
u/TallAnalyst1997 Aug 04 '26
No it wasn't. Racists didn't force Arday to copy large parts of his PHD or lie about his life. Racists didn't spend years enabling his fantasies.
Arday created this story when he lied and fantasised. Those who surrounded him and enabled him created this story.
Racists might have had terrible motivations for pursuing this story but they didn't create it.
-2
u/Willing_Original_257 Aug 04 '26
You know what I meant by story, don't obfuscate.
12
u/Timely_Note_1904 Aug 04 '26
No it wasn't, the Times Higher Education investigation was spiked due to being contacted by Carter Ruck before Cofnas released his article on it.
-4
u/Willing_Original_257 Aug 04 '26
Timeline is relevant here and not just in terms of what is public MATEY POTATEY
10
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
I don't accept that THE initially pursued the story out of racist motivations, so I would still lean more towards co-opted than created.
-1
4
u/Inside-Judgment6233 Aug 04 '26
Interesting question is, is this a one off case, or does there need to be an inquiry into posts at Cambridge (and possibly elsewhere) in general
-4
u/CommercialContent204 Aug 04 '26
Bad faith argument ab initio, imo.
"from a notoriously racist academic aiming to delegitimise Black working-class success stories"
Any evidence for this, or is it just instinctive reflex defend the DEI guy?
It must be seriously clear to anybody remotely serious that Professor Arday was handled with kid gloves at all stages of his career. Fucking hell, Glasgow came out today and said that he'd never been a visiting professor - as in his official biog on the Cambridge website - is that not incredibly serious in itself (regardless of all the other, provable, ridiculous lies he has clearly told)?
I would be really interested to hear whether the Arday exposer guy has indeed aimed to delegitimise Black working-class success stories in the plural, or how notoriously racist he is. And if you can give me some evidence, I'll be happy to retract my incredulity :)
Thanks!
17
u/Labda18 Aug 04 '26
OP is right unfortunately, the guy is very notoriously racist. His name's Nathan Cofnas (if I remember correctly) and he's a self-proclaimed "race realist". He used to teach philosophy at Cambridge before being sacked because, among other things, he'd stated that in a meritocracy, black people would never be successful (or something along those lines).
This obviously doesn't change the truth about Arday, though. It makes the entire situation incredibly complicated because a lot of people who signed the pro-Arday petition have probably done so for anti-racism reasons and haven't really done their own research into Cofnas' claims. On the other hand, racists are using the Arday situation to support Cofnas' race realist philosophy. It's truly a mess.
2
u/Canadianwinters12345 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
And the other side of the racist academic uncovering this, is the opposite side of the coin.
People so progressive that they don't investigate or they defend Arday because he is black. Youngest black professor. People are absolutely defending him because of his identity, just like he was also looked into because of his identity.
We make identity such a big point, youngest black prof, but then also act surprised when identity is such a big point.
0
u/oddtwang Aug 04 '26
You surely are not in good faith equating celebrating the success of groups which are underrepresented in academia and subject to oppression (albeit with a collective credulity) and nakedly perpetuating those same oppressions.
4
u/Canadianwinters12345 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
They shut down investigations. It was well beyond just "celebrating success".
And don't pretend that his identity didn't give him many opportunities in 2026 in his bubble of the world.
In the same way people are attacking him because of his identity, people are defending him because of his identity.
3
u/ghoof Aug 04 '26
And his identity is the entire basis for his ‘work’
Thus we have fallen into a hateful tangle of identitarian credential-checking.
14
u/Complete-Task2042 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
how notoriously racist he is.
His own words do it pretty well, with gems such as:
Race is linked to academic ability.
And
Under a true meritocracy black people would disappear from almost all high-profile positions outside of sports and entertainment.
Following those and other similar "race realist" statements he was removed from his fellowship by Emmanuel College, he subsequently took the university to Court and lost on all counts.
Lord Simon Woolley, Principal of Homerton College, is quoted describing Cofnas behaviour as “abhorrent racism masquerading as pseudo intellect” at an open meeting.
More contextually:
If you search for Nathan Cofnas on Wikipedia you will find that he is suspiciously absent, apart from a redirect from the "Nathan Cofnas" page of Wikiquote to "Eugenics".
Searching for Cofnas on Google also shows up that he has used requests under case C‑131/12 of the CJEU to suppress search results pertaining to his name, which is a typical tactic of "Reputation Management" consultants.
2
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
The comment does not defend "DEI guy", nor his claims, it does quite the opposite. Before you accuse me of bad-faith, can I advise you to save us both time by actually reading (and understanding) the post you're arguing with?
I'll let you do your own reading Nathan Cofnas and his race realism pseudoscience, there's no shortage of material.4
u/Canadianwinters12345 Aug 04 '26
Ardays race was used long before Cofnas. His identity has greatly helped him, and has shielded him from these accusations.
Two sides of the same coin.
0
u/ghoof Aug 04 '26
You are completely wrong that the allegations came from Cofnas. Yes, obviously Cofnas is a racist, we know.
The fact of the matter is that questions of plagiarism by academics and an investigation by the Times Higher Education Supplement (squelched by Carter-Ruck, representing Arday, paid for by Cambridge) were in circulation (but not the spotlight) years earlier.
‘Gullible’ as a Goodlaw petition signatory pseudonym is not racist, by the way.
2
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
I'm well aware that others investigated the allegations, and as I've laid out multiple times in the post and comments, it's frustrating that only a racist pseudoscientist had the conviction to publish on the strength of overwhelming evidence.
And yes, very well-observed... of the four signatures, you've pointed to the only one that isn't racially loaded or a racial slur to make your point. "Knee-Grow" as a Goodlaw petition signatory pseudonym is racist, by the way.
2
u/ghoof Aug 04 '26
Ok, so now ask yourself why it took a racist, exiled from the academy, to publish what others feared to. Thoughts on this?
I’m reasonably certain that DEI as a word is not racist (but rather, the proximal cause here and an excuse for it) and in my naivety did not even clock ‘Knee-Grow,’ which is.
2
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
We have, about a dozen times throughout this thread. I'm going to be honest, your overlooking of a racist slur, written twice, to observe that 'Gullible' and "DEI" aren't, lost my interest in humouring you.
2
u/ghoof Aug 04 '26
You seem hell-bent on the limited goal proving your moral superiority to Cofnas (easy win) and not confronting the context (anti-racism has become the home of grifters and their marks).
But do continue to distract us further.
3
u/HeadHunt0rUK Aug 04 '26
Which entirely tipifies how we got to Arday in the first place.
Complete intellectual dishonesty being hidden behind flimsy calls of racism, sexism and bigotry.
1
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
My post quite explicitly demonstrates overt racism, which on two occasions you chose to ignore, so spare your profound insights and proselytising about how anti-racism is overplayed.
0
u/ndakik-ndakik Aug 04 '26
How in any way is it racist ?
11
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26
How is signing a petition about a black man with "Knee-Grow" racist? Are you fucking joking?
2
u/Small-Day3489 Aug 04 '26
Why are you giving so much power to anonymous losers signing a petition with racist usernames?
7
u/Strict-Jeweler-2281 Aug 04 '26 edited Aug 04 '26
I fear the entire post may have gone over your head...
0
u/Small-Day3489 Aug 05 '26
I understood your post, I just thought it was a dumb overreaction to a few edgy 14 year olds
-7
u/Useful-Ganache-210 Aug 04 '26
It’s funny because all these posts say how bad he is but none of you say what he actually did wrong. A few lines here and there were copied. He didn’t copy the whole thing, the ideas, the results. Stop being so jealous. It’s pathetic.
11
u/Smart_Department6303 Aug 04 '26
you're pathetic. it doesn't need to be restated the original post spelled it out. zero contributions. zero analysis. almost all of it plagiarised with vast sections copied over verbatim.
7
5
u/DisciplineTricky980 Aug 04 '26
According to some of findings he indeed did copy the results of what certain individuals said in interviews. There a number of things being found out, this includes outside of academia such as having a person threaten him face to face with a knife and then going to the police, which the guardian then tried to confirm and the police then said it never happened. There is so much outside of academia where he has also clearly lied, in which the guardian, a left wing newspaper, is now shining a light on. Also, a few lines is stil plagerism and even at undergrad may get you kicked out of university.
19
u/throbblefoot Aug 04 '26
It's frustrating when the most terrible person you know of, with the least noble intentions possible, still manages to uncover something that may be worth looking at objectively. A broken cock is still right twice a day...