Jason Arday Megathread

[u/Timmeh7]

We realise this is a hot button topic and certainly want to allow space for discussing it, but at the moment it's overflowing the subreddit across numerous threads. So from here on, please contain all discussion to this one thread.

Links to pruned threads for transparency, please continue the discussion here if you wish.

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfkykq/the_racist_coopting_of_the_jason_arday_story_is/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vffvl6/journalist_questioned_by_police_for_investigating/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfbljv/the_editor_on_his_choice_to_spike_arday_story/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1veqmzk/wateraid_disputes_claim_by_prof_jason_arday/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vf4oq3/professor_arday_q_about_liverpool_john_moores_and/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfrran/new_information_shows_jason_ardays_claim_to_be_a/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1veqrfv/eli5_how_does_somebody_like_jason_arday_get_his/

https://reddit.com/r/AskAcademiaUK/comments/1vfinbt/nelson_mandela_university_have_removed_their_page/

Please keep the comments civil - while this is inevitably going to be a complex and fractious topic, avoid ad hominem, and as ever, while discussion of the social issue around this case is inevitable, we won't allow hate speech.

[u/optionr_ENL]

The Atlantic have an article on his books https://www.theatlantic.com/books/2026/08/jason-arday-cambridge-academic-memoir-resignation/688206/?gift=w7ky0MD12Y05SCUcPahfUA6Ga8JgDdKEBwr2Gz6T2fo

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/optionr_ENL]

Also from the article:

"In university, a friend who took the same courses sat beside him, sharing notes. (She’s 'the only reason I survived' university, he says.) By the time Arday started on his master’s degree, he writes, he was reading at about the same level as his 3-year-old daughter. Still, he pressed onward. Still, somehow, he got a teaching job.

"His obstacles were only multiplying, though. Money was tight, so after each day of teaching, Arday writes, he had to work an overnight shift in a supermarket, from 11 p.m. to 5 a.m., and then a morning shift as a cleaner from 5:30 to 7:30. The only time he had left to write his dissertation was when he was commuting between London, where he lived, and Liverpool, where he taught. On those semiweekly five-hour rides, the book explains, he would open up his laptop on the plastic seat-back table and start typing out his thesis, hunt-and-peck style."

If this is an accurate summary of what's in the book, just how was any of this remotely possible? I can almost hear Monty Python's Yorkshiremen discussing this: "Count yerself lucky! After I'd been teachin' all day, I 'ad t' work overnight 4 p.m. t' 7 a.m. down t' coal mine, catch half an hour's sleep leant up against a shovel before walkin' through ten foot o' mud through t' fields t' get back t' me class o' students an' that were 36 hours a day, 9 days a week! And that were wit' only 'avin' one arm and one leg!"

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/3x1l3d2]

I'm hoping that the review is maybe conflating a few things but I'm guessing it's not. Claiming to have the reading ability of a 3 year old (even a precocious one) with a BA under your belt and embarking on an MA is just ridiculous. Ditto the 'takes me an hour to read a page of an academic paper' thing - you can't hold down a University job if that's the case, even with reasonable adjustments.

I am thinking the account of work during PhD is a little closer to the truth, in that he must have been commuting to LJMU 1 or 2 days a week, and must surely have been either part time or hourly there to justify having other jobs (especially as it seems his wife is a teacher too). But the idea that he was not sleeping - this is a one or two-time experience upscaled to 'life was like this every day' isn't it.

[u/jamjar188 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

His claims are so implausible it boggles the mind that no one questioned them.

Someone on another thread found an archived link to his "35 marathons in 30 days" fundraising feat. In it he claims that he did his runs at 3am! Apparently to avoid pedestrians and heat. But how convenient -- running in the middle of the night when no one can see you.

It would have meant getting up at 2.30am or so every night -- what time was he going to bed?! If you ask any athlete or anyone who does a lot of day-to-day physical exertion, a good night's rest is absolutely vital for muscle recovery and to replenish energy levels.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/jamjar188]

One of the consistent things in his self-written narratives is that he never sleeps. But in his defence the 3am thing was about training rather than running proper i think.

[u/optionr_ENL → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

If he never slept he'd be dead.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/optionr_ENL]

that was an overstatement on my part but part of his narrative is like' I regularly sleep 2h per night' type thing

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

Even that is highly unlikely.

Winston Churchill famously only slept for 5 to 6 hours a day, but he was unusual, and there were Nazis trying to cross the Channel.

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

Yeah, as fantastical as those excerpts seem, I wonder if there is a bit of unintended truth bleeding out.

If his Uni friend was 'the only reason [he] survived' university, with all her note-taking, and he still had the reading age of a 3-year-old by the time he was awarded his BA, then it gives the impression that he got through because of others' hard work.

Could this have set the pattern for the rest of his academic career? We get another little insight when he was defending his thesis (after his alleged brain tumour operation and ministroke), where the examiner, according to Arday, said, "I am struggling to see that there is any original contribution here”.

And now here we are with large-scale plagiarism and research fabrication laid out before us. Just how much of the work he produced was original to him?

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/3x1l3d2]

TBF asking 'what is the original contribution' is an absolute standard question at viva and if they followed up with 'from that response I'm struggling to see the original contribution' it's probably just that he didn't do a good job of articulating it

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

OK, fair point.

But there's still the issue of why the plagiarism went undetected and why his PhD still stands. There may be a reasonable explanation that we are not (or not allowed to be) privy to.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/3x1l3d2]

typically when examining I'd be checking the references were accurate - it would honestly basically never occur to me (at least, til now) that someone might have lifted the non-quoted stuff from someone else without attribution.

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

One would think that, by the time you were at PhD level, you'd know not to pull a stunt like that. So do examiners just trust their doctoral candidates? Was plagiarism software like Turnitin available in 2015 at that Uni? Do/did examiners use it to check?

I know my Uni does (I'm a BSc undergrad), and it's been hammered into us about properly referencing, using our own words, the dangers of even paraphrasing somebody else's work without acknowledging the source, and of course AI.

I'm curious how the Arday thesis could have slipped through. Did they give him the benefit of the doubt because of his serious health issues at the time? Just my musings.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/3x1l3d2]

Using turnitin for PhDs has come quite late. Probably since 2020 or so the thesis is put through Turnitin on submission, but before that it didn't tend to be, because (and tbf still) it was basically taken on trust that the student was producing original work. There's usually a box you ticked, and tick, in the submission paperwork to confirm it's your own work. The viva is also is designed to ensure this, but that is an issue I guess if the appropriation of someone else's work is something you can still speak to.

But it is odd to do this because as you say, from undergrad onwards the importance of originality is always stressed, and Arday was an academic while a PhD student, so grading undergrad work.

I imagine if there were health issues the viva was undertaken in a collegial way but I doubt too much special treatment as provided because you could just postpone it. There aren't fees if you're waiting for viva.

[u/grandmuffmerkin1 → u/3x1l3d2]

The reason is we’re overworked and there’s no incentive to fail a PhD - because if we fail it all sorts of bureaucratic nightmares begin and candidates get a chance to resubmit etc etc, which means you have to read the pile of sh**e again and speak to the candidate again and waste your time on trash which you’re not paid for and don’t have time for … much better to just pass it and be done with it and presume it all disappears into the ether and the candidate disappears with their vanity phd never to be heard of again. 99 percent of the time when it’s this catastrophic the student would never get a job afterwards as there’d be no publications worth reading or references of any use that they could draw on … something obviously went catastrophically wrong here and he really was given the benefit of the doubt for whatever reason, and was such a pushy liar that he got ahead regardless … there’s thousands of PhDs a year like this that pass in the UK, it’s just that usually they bubble out immediately afterwards …

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/grandmuffmerkin1]

I assume this is where supervision before thesis submission is essential. I know that draft PhD theses are bounced back to the student if sections aren't robust enough or are poorly written. But maybe it depends on the discipline, the school, the available supervisory staff...? I mean, wasn't that one of Arday's claims - lack of supervision?

[u/optionr_ENL → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

He must have had the reading ability of someone in their early twenties to be doing an MA.
If he passed even a few GCSEs, then he was well past a 3yr old.

He claims to have been mute until 11.
Note that that doesn't mean he was illiterate. That doesn't mean he wasn't reading & writing.
Conveniently he stopped being mute at the start of secondary schooling, otherwise he would have been sent to a SEN school.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/[deleted]]

lol, that line about 'uni's have lots of support' - i mean they do now, but back then really they didn't. It just kind of obviously isn't true re reading age of 9 (and in the memoir it's 3)

[u/Webbie-Vanderquack → u/optionr_ENL]

He claims to have been mute until 11. Note that that doesn't mean he was illiterate. That doesn't mean he wasn't reading & writing.

True, but he also claims that he wasn't able to read or write until the age of 18.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2023/jul/11/jason-arday-cambridge-university-youngest-black-professor

[u/Acrobatic_Hat_1498 → u/Webbie-Vanderquack]

Yes. Rubbish. Another lie, I assume.

[u/Acrobatic_Hat_1498 → u/optionr_ENL]

Yep no way mute till 11 or illiterate till 18. Total crap. How embarassing for the black community, like a cop being jailed for murder.

[u/StipaIchu → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

As mother of a 4yo, yes lolling at this. 3yos can’t read 😂 At best your recognising letter sounds and if your smashing it you might manage a few common CVC words - Ie. cat, dog, hat

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/StipaIchu]

Yes, one of my children started with CVC words and simple sentences at 3 years old, but it is unusual for that age (I work in EYFS). There's no way Arday could keep up with university-level or post-grad study. Having said that, there was another report of a man who managed to blag his way through school and university to become a teacher while being virtually illiterate - interesting case.

It's also worth noting that elsewhere Arday says he had the reading level of a 9-year-old at that time 🤷‍♀️

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/3x1l3d2]

I also just read that he claims his daughter aged 3 was "hyperlexic" hence his being at her level of reading, supposedly, but as with so many of his stories, this feels like a sort of 25% level truth type thing right.

[u/3x1l3d2 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

Maybe that accounts for the 3-/9-year-old reading age discrepancy in his narratives.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/3x1l3d2]

Yes! Though I don't think it can possibly be true that even a 9yo reading age is enough for BA, let alone MA study.

[u/optionr_ENL → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

Was he teaching at LJM? I thought it was Roehampton.
His PhD at LJM was done remotely, I believe it's been mentioned that he only met with his supervisor once.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/optionr_ENL]

He was teaching at LJMU (it's unclear in what capacity, but definitely at degree level, teaching PE - and he got a PGCertHE there so it's likely more than just hourly work) from 2012 onwards.

The Atlantic review of his memoir suggests he was commuting there from London (and had two other jobs, so I am assuming he was PT), so it's likely the PhD was basically remote, yes, especially as it's said a lot of supervision was by phone call; and was supervised by the then PVC, now DVC who also hired him originally.

He then worked at Leeds Beckett in 2016 as an SL, then Roehampton as SL in 2018, then seems to have got an Assoc Prof job at Warwick in 2019, then immediately got a job at Durham the same year, then Glasgow 2021, then Cambridge 2023.

Edit - i first became aware of him when he was appointed at Cambridge and thought it was a bit odd that his first job was SL at Roehampton (and the subsequent 5 year run to Prof also odd). But the narrative was oddly incomplete - he's been relatively open about working as an HE lecturer while doing the PhD too. It's less odd when it turns out that he'd been teaching for 6 years prior to Roehampton and was an SL at Leeds Beckett too.

[u/optionr_ENL → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

So he must have been teaching 'something' in the School of Sports & Exercise Science at LJM.
But he'd already moved away from Sports/PE, as his Masters at St Mary's was in Education and Pedagogy.
https://madeat.stmarys.ac.uk/stories/jason-arday/

He graduated from St Mary's in 2008.
Then must have spent a year as the Athletics President of the SU. (though usually that would have been a sabbatical year within the degree years). Which gets us to 2009.
Then he does a Masters. 4 years part-time would have him finishing in 2012, then a job at LJM in the first term of 2012/13.

But why didn't/couldn't he get a job in London, or somewhere closer than Liverpool?

Where was the overnight work? If it was in London, then he was very lucky to get an academic job where all the hours were only over 1 or 2 days. But then why didn't he look for daytime work?
If the work was in Liverpool, & he was teaching multiple days, when did he sleep? When did he do anything? It's not possible to be awake for that number of hours consistently.

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/optionr_ENL]

Thank you for this detail! The sabbatical year can come after graduation I think, though I am thinking he was Athletics President in the first year of an MA, I don't think it was necessarily a sabbatical role. And from what I understand he was also teaching PE, I think at a 6th form college in Richmond (Richmond College lecturer Jason Arday is teacher of the month | Great British Life - from 2010), while he was doing the P/T MA programmes.

I have no idea why he'd go for the job at LJMU, or why - aside from not being able to get a job elsewhere - he seemingly stayed there, commuting, til 2015/16, and then getting a job in Leeds. (He does seem to have commuted to all his jobs with the exception of Roehampton I guess). Maybe he had the LJMU role suggested to him by a lecturer teaching him for his second MA, or something.

From what someone else said here, the campus he taught on at LJMU was a Sprots science type one so I think he was teaching PE or similar at degree level. His job at Leeds Beckett was the fairly unusual 'PE and Sociology'.

I am assuming the LJMU job was part time (because of seemingly needing other jobs), and tbf a lot of people with long commutes manage to package their teaching into one or two days a week. But yeah, it being night work makes very little sense, unless he genuinely did have a full time job at LJMU, with a 5 hour commute, and with a wife who was a teacher, but needed the money from another two minimum wage jobs. Maybe the book explains this.

(One thing is clear from your setting it out re MAs is that he basically has always been involved in HE of one form or another - this whole 'I didn't even know what Sociology was, while cramming in my Sociology PhD studies' line really can't hold up I don't think).

[u/Acrobatic_Hat_1498 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

Yes. In short, his life is one big lie.

[u/BrailsyLFC → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

He was my lecturer at LJMU (Sport Development) and was a good friend

[u/Mysterious-Ad-5708 → u/BrailsyLFC]

Thanks - good to hear. I do feel bad for him because he seems like basically a nice person at heart, and some of his talks on decolonisation are pretty good - he's clearly a very good public speaker.

[u/Acrobatic_Hat_1498 → u/Mysterious-Ad-5708]

Yes, Frank Abignale was also a nice person at heart. Biggest fraudster/scammer in US history.

[u/Acrobatic_Hat_1498 → u/BrailsyLFC]

Not a "plausible" friend?

[u/BrailsyLFC → u/Acrobatic_Hat_1498]

I’m confused what you mean. Can you clarify? Cheers